Incredible Shrinking Man / Video Games

• This happens in a scene to the heroes of both Breath of Fire I and Breath of Fire II.
• Some of the later levels in Byteria Heroes: Crimson Gem of Order have a potion that shrinks you, so you can run through small passageways. You then have to reach another potion to reverse the effect before you can exit the level. You cannot attack in this state, either, which is why the final boss loves to cast a shink spell; it wears off by itself in this case.
• Crash Bandicoot:
  • In Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back, the levels inside Cortex's space station. One hit equals instant death for Crash or Coco as they shrink beyond sight.
  • In Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure, Cortex invents a planetary minimiser to shrink the entire planet. Amusingly since not just Crash but everything else is shrunk as well, it has no real affect on the gameplay, and you spend the whole game collecting crystals as per formula to power a machine Coco is making to reverse it.
  • Not one but two of Coco's podium animations in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled involve her shrinking in some way. Her space age animation involves her using her teleporter belt, only to react with annoyance when she comes out wrong, with all but her head shrunk. Another is Alice in Wonderland themed, with Coco unable to resist eating a nearby mushroom, with the expected homage.
• Dare to Dream: Getting to several locations in the second episode involves using pills from a prescription bottle to shrink, allowing access to new areas.
• Donkey Kong 64: One of the abilities Tiny can learn allows her to shrink her size once she gets into a special barrel marked with her face. With her reduced size, she can get into holes and small areas, and on occasion Sqwaks can take her into a high spot (that obviously isn't possible with Tiny's standard size).
• One section in Duke Nukem Forever features Duke shrunken to miniature size by an enemy's Shrink Ray. He then proceeds to kick ass against similarly-sized aliens.
  • Duke Nukem 3D also has a shrink ray weapon that works both ways. At a few points Duke is required to be shrunk to enter small passageways.
• In The Elder Scrolls series, Nord mythology holds that drinking the blood of a Giant results in "diminution".
• In Fate/Grand Order, the heroes have to journey with Ishtar through the underworld at one point. Each time Ishtar passes through one of the gates, she shrinks. By the time they make it to Ereshkigal, the Queen of the Underworld, Ishtar is so small she is almost impossible to see. The creators have noted that in the original myth, Ishtar was stripped of an article of clothing at each gate until she was rendered naked, but the game would have never gotten away with depicting that, plus this way was funnier.
• The 'Mini' spell and debuff in most Final Fantasy installments, which induces a status where all physical attacks are reduced to Scratch Damage and defense is lowered.
• This trope is the whole premise of Grounded, in which a group of teenagers wake up the size of insects with no memory of how they got that way. They must elude an assortment of predatory creepy-crawlies while seeking a means to restore themselves, hidden in miniaturized Mad Science labs that are scattered throughout an otherwise-normal suburban backyard.
• One of the DLC dramas for The Idolmaster SP involves Yukiho inexplicably shrinking to 1/6 size.
• The indie game Inch By Inch is centered on a scientist who mistakenly drank a potion that made them slowly shrink, and the goal of the game is to make an antidote before they become too small to do anything.
• In The Incredible Shrinking Woman, Too! the main character shrinks after using a can of hairspray and is carried off to the kitchen countertop by the family parrot.
• The Mini Copy Ability in Kirby & the Amazing Mirror shrinks Kirby down to a miniscule size. While he is incapable of fighting back due to his small size, he can fit into tiny tunnels which are impossible for a regular-sized Kirby.
• In The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Link is able to shrink down to the size of a Minish thanks to Ezlo, a member of their species that accompanies him. It only works if there are particular platforms Link can stand on to invoke this ability, but it allows him to access places normal Hylians can't and can be reversed the same way it's initiated.
• In Lonesome Village, entering a certain door in the Mouse Maze puzzle causes Wes to shrink in size, allowing him to get through passages that would normally be too small for him to fit into.
• Mickey Mouse games:
  • In Disney's Magical Mirror Starring Mickey Mouse, Mickey can get shrunk by interacting with a witch doll and he explores the area mini-sized before being subsequently chased by a toy duck. Much later on, Mickey can use a magnifying glass on the tiny ghost in the attic, and activating the event's trick causes the two to switch sizes, with the ghost getting the upper hand as Mickey has now become miniscule in size compared to him.
  • In Land of Illusion, one of the items Mickey can get is a shrinking potion which allows him to become smaller and fit through narrow tunnels.
  • In Mickey's Ultimate Challenge, Donald (as a wizard) unknowingly shrinks Mickey/Minnie while testing one of his magic spells on his potions, and the goal is to push the shrunken potions into a magic mirror on a checkerboard maze in order for the mouse to return to his/her normal size.
• Milon's Secret Castle: Milon can do this with a potion and a boxing glove.
• Appears in a level in Ōkami where the eponymous wolf is shrunk down by magic to the size of her companion, Issun, and has to dodge such mundane dangers as spiders and Japanese housewives with brooms.
• Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time has the Shrinking Violet, which shrinks zombies in a 3x3 area. This causes them to receive double damage and deal half damage thanks to reduced size. Against the already-tiny Imps and zombie animals, it turns into a One-Hit Kill by shrinking them into oblivion.
• The move Minimize in the Pokémon games has the user compress their bodies to make themselves smaller and increase their evasion, thereby making their opponents' moves less accurate. However, various kinds of attack that involve crushing the recipient onto the ground (historically only Stomp, but others such as Steamroller, Flying Press and Heavy Slam have been added in later generations) bypass this evasion check and deal double damage against the target if they used Minimize.
• In Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters, the titular duo acquire a Shrink Ray very early into the game. Throughout the game, this allows them to enter "Grind Locks" which can only be unlocked by finishing the miniature grinding courses contained within, and also allows them to engage the antagonistic-yet-small Technomites directly. A good few levels are set with Ratchet and Clank at a tiny size, and one lategame level has Ratchet enter Clank himself to fend off an invasion of Technomites attacking the robot from the inside.
• Rayman:
  • In Rayman: Raving Rabbids for the Game Boy Advance, certain levels in the Child world and Sweets world have objects that shrink Rayman: pencil sharpeners in the former, and ice cream cones in the latter. This allows Rayman to enter areas with small entrances, but the lower size makes it nigh-impossible to platform across things intended for Rayman at his normal size, making it more of a downgrade. Touching a Magic Star will put Rayman back at his normal height.
  • In Rayman Origins and Rayman Legends, Rayman and his friends have the ability to shrink. It's earned in the former game upon rescuing Edith Up in Polar Pursuit, and is retained in the latter like all of their other abilities. The skill activates automatically when entering a structure with a large opening on one end and a small one on the other. In this state, the characters' normal attacks are replaced with an aerial dash punch and Goomba Stomps don't damage enemies, but the rest of their movesets remain intact.
• Red Alert 3: The Allied Cryocopter has the ability to temporarily shrink down any ground vehicle, making them faster but also making them vulnerable to being run over.
• This also happens to the heroes in a Shining Force II scene.
• This happens in Snowboard Kids 2. The main characters were shrunk down, turning Wendy's house into a snowboard track.
• In South Park: The Stick of Truth, The New Kid gets shrunk down by elves and chases them around his house to turn back to normal. He later gains use of their magic dust to shrink and enter small areas.
• Space Quest:
  • In Space Quest II: Vohaul's Revenge, Roger is shrunk by Vohaul's Shrink Ray and trapped in a glass jar.
  • In Space Quest VI: Roger Wilco in the Spinal Frontier, Roger shrinks down again for the "Fantastic Voyage" Plot in the game's last act.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Any game in the series that relies on the "Small" → "Super" powerup system introduced in the first Super Mario Bros. will have the player characters shrink from Super to Small upon taking damage, making them shorter and stumpier. This puts them one hit from death and removes their ability to break Brick Blocks, but also makes it easier to fit into tight spaces - at Super or higher form, one-block tall paths usually require spamming crouch jumps, crawling, or rolling.
  • Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins has the trope-naming Macro Zone, an otherwise ordinary house. The only paths to it on the world map require entering a large hole in a hill and exiting from a small hole on the other side, resulting in Mario being temporarily reduced to the size of an ant whenever he passes through them.
  • New Super Mario Bros.: The subseries introduced the Mini Mushroom into a platforming game, and standardized its design as blue with white spots. This makes Mario and anyone else who can use it smaller than a Goomba, giving them a much floatier jump, and letting them fit through small gaps and pipes, run on water, and in New Super Mario Bros. U and New Super Luigi U, run up and down walls. The tradeoffs are that they'll die in one hit, and they have to do a Ground Pound to deal any damage to enemies.
  • Mario Kart:
    • Super Mario Kart has the Poison Mushroom, exclusive to Toad and Peach, shrink anyone who touches it, rather than just dealing damage and shrinking by proxy as it did in Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. This shrinking behaves the same as Lightning's, slowing the driver and making them vulnerable to being flattened.
    • Mario Kart 64: The Lightning makes its debut in this game. It is an item that is often received by players who are lagging behind. When used, it zaps everyone but the user with a bolt from the skies, making them spin out and drop any items they have. When shrunken, drivers' top speeds are reduced, and they're vulnerable to being Squashed Flat if a normal-sized driver runs over them, cutting their speed as well.
    • Mario Kart: Super Circuit features Thunder Clouds as hazards on its Rainbow Road, which has the same effect on characters that drive underneath them.
    • The Thunder Cloud (unrelated to the ones from Super Circuit) is an item in all three Arcade GP titles as well as Mario Kart Wii. When received, it's used automatically and gives you a Personal Raincloud; this cloud gives you a higher top speed and lets you drive offroad without penalty, but hold onto it for too long and it'll zap you with lightning that has the same effect as the Lightning item. If you ram somebody else's car before the lightning strikes, you transfer the cloud to them, making it a risky item.
  • Wario Land II features a wizard enemy that can zap Wario, turning him into Tiny Wario.
  • In the Piranha Grove level of the Jungle page in Yoshi's Story, there is a subspecies of Piranha Plant that will shrink you after it eats you. Thankfully, the shrinking effects only last for a few seconds.
  • Mario Party:
    • Mario Party 4 introduced the Mini Mushroom, a white-spotted pink mushroom that's primarily used to grant access to certain passages and events exclusive to being small. Unfortunately, it also reduces your Dice Block from a 1-10 count to a 1-5 count, making it harder to reach such goals with it.
    • The 1-vs-3 minigame "Crate and Peril" in Mario Party 6 and The Top 100 has the solo player suck the trio into a crate they're holding, shrinking them in the process. The minigame has the solo player tilt the box in an attempt to slide Spiny shells into the three of them, while the trio's goal is to survive until the 30 seconds are up.
    • Mario Party DS: The game's premise has Bowser baiting the playable characters into a trap and shrinking them with a magic staff called the Minimizer. Thus, almost everything in the game is a Macro Zone, with boards such as DK's Stone Statue (actually Donkey Kong himself turned to stone) and Bowser's Pinball Machine (Exactly What It Says on the Tin), and minigames like Study Fall (a Game of Chicken where the goal is to stop as low as possible on a blackboard) and Rail Riders (where the players get speed sliding down a staircase bannister to see who can jump the farthest across a foyer). Donkey Kong shattering the Minimizer near the end of the story results in the effects reversing, and ultimately the final boss battle and ending sequence have your character at normal size for the first time since the introduction cutscene.
  • Paper Mario:
    • In Paper Mario 64 and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Shrink is a status effect that reduces a character's attack power when inflicted.
    • In Super Paper Mario, the heroes can use Dottie the Pixl to shrink in size. Unlike the previous games, this state will not reduce their attack power, but instead allows the user to go through tiny passages or pipes, and become harder to hit by enemies.
  • Mario & Luigi:
    • In Mario & Luigi: Dream Team and Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam, the Mini status will cause the Bro. inflicted to have reduced ATK and DEF, as well as disabling Bros. Attacks and the respective special attacks in these games.
    • In the Minion Quest in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions and Bowser Jr.'s Journey in Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story + Bowser Jr.'s Journey, the Lightning Captain Command can shrink characters, causing them to have reduced stats and be unable to use Special Skills.
• The Lightning Bolt item from the Mario Kart series (as detailed above) was also featured as an item in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and all subsequent titles from there. When a fighter touches it, it may temporarily shrink all of the other fighters on the stage, drastically reducing their damage output and weight. However, it may also backfire by making only the fighter who touched it shrink instead, or by making all of the other fighters grow! Additionally, any fighter that picks up a Poison Mushroom (which, while similar-looking to the size-increasing Super Mushroom, is slightly darker in coloration and bears an angrier expression) will get temporarily cut down to size.
• In Tales of Monkey Island Chapter 4: The Trial and Execution of Guybrush Threepwood, Guybrush uses one of the buttons on De Singe's Auto-Trepanation Helmet and gets shrunk a bit smaller than the size of a lab vole for a bit before growing back to normal size.
• In Wonder Boy in Monster World the "Pygmy" equipment allows you to shrink to half your size and enter small passageways.
  • Likewise for the Mouseman form in Wonder Boy III: The Dragon's Trap.
• World of Warcraft:
  • Happens a few times (although only slight effects), with this quest being an exception: you're shrunk to the size of a rat.
  • Several spell effects reduce the target's size and can sometimes make them vulnerable to being stunned if another player steps on them.
  • The Return to Karazhan mega-dungeon has, after a very long drop through time and space, the group ending up in the library shrunken to the point that they're too small to take Falling Damage and can ride rats. The boss of this part is a regular-sized mana wyrm who is significantly more dangerous thanks to the adventurers' reduced stature, then once it's defeated, they return to normal size and encounter more wyrms who are now a minor annoyance.

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