Category talk:Power-ups

Cleaning up this category

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I've noticed that several entries in this category and its subcategories seem be stretching the definition of "power-up". For example, there's the 1-Up Mushroom, which only gives the player an extra life and doesn't power up the user in any way; or the Megamorph Belt, which is only used by Bowser in his role as an antagonistic NPC in Mario Party DS and therefore isn't a power-up by definition as the player never uses it. To me, a lot of the misuse seems like poorly thought out choices from the early days of this wiki that go unnoticed as our standards change. Other misuse, however, is probably just Category:Flower power-ups and Category:Size-changing power-ups being subcategories of this when they'd make more sense as seperate categories named something like Category:Fire Flowers (even though most of them aren't fire-based—it's the best name I could think of) and Category:Size-changing items respectively.

In preparation for remedying this category's state with a proposal, I've put together a dissection of this category and its subcategories in my sandbox. I've divided the entries by how I want to handle the articles, with subgrouping for what kinds of articles the categories are being applied to. Before I start preparing the proposal, I'd like some feedback on how to handle certain items in "Could go either way" first—mainly the character caps from Super Mario 64 DS, the Wonder Flower, the boomerang, and meat. (I'll likely have the Mario Party items and non-video game items as voting options.) Perhaps some items I've labeled as uncertainties or removals could be contested as well. Deciding how to treat the subcategories can happen in a later proposal—that'd just overcomplicate the one I currently have planned. — SolemnStormcloud (talk) 19:34, February 4, 2025 (EST)

For my two cents...

• Character caps - Probably keep these. If one of our working definitions of a power-up is an item that gives you a special ability via some transformation that you can lose by taking damage, these fit the bill.
• Wonder Flower - Remove this. The Wonder Flower itself is not a power-up and just exists to trigger whatever goofy mechanic the devs wanted in a level. Sometimes that includes a form change, but I also wouldn't consider any of these power-ups in the traditional sense. Even if you take damage, you don't lose it - some like Wubba Mario even have a Small Mario equivalent.
• Mario Party candies - Remove these. Mario Party doesn't have traditional power-up mechanics, these are just flashy transformations during your turn to communicate that there's a special effect going on.
• Non-video game items - Remove these. Some items in other media are intentionally portrayed similarly to the game's power-ups, but power-ups are specifically a game mechanic so it makes sense to organize them from a mechanical perspective rather than a lore perspective.
• Boomerang - Probably remove this. The only thing it has going for it versus something like the potted Piranha Plant is that the e-Reader card can put it in the inventory, but SMB3's inventory also has non-power-up items like the Warp Whistle, Anchor, Music Box etc.
• Meat - Keep this. It's analogous to several items from the platformers in a gameplay section that's identical to them.

I have no objections to anything on the removals list. -- Too Bad! Waluigi Time! 14:01, February 6, 2025 (EST)

Alright! I've updated my sandbox per your feedback, and I should have a proposal ready in a little bit. — SolemnStormcloud (talk) 14:20, February 6, 2025 (EST)