Power-Up Motif

In games that use Power Ups, often the power-ups are timed. In many cases, an audio motif indicates the fact that the power-up is in play, vanishing the moment the power-up expires.

Related to Theme Music Power-Up, but not to Magic Music.

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Examples

Action Adventure

• The Legend of Zelda
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, the Piece of Power and Guardian Acorn work exactly this way; they change the background music for the duration of their effects, which only wear off after you take three hits or enter/exit a dwelling.
  • In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, a triumphant remix of Link's leitmotif plays when a boss is stunned and their weakness is exposed. Zant overrides this with his own crazy themes, however.
• In ZZT, collecting an energizer (which provides temporary invincibility) causes the player to flash and also plays a jaunty tune (which closely resembles Wipeout by the Surfaris). When the tune finishes, the energizer effect also stops.

Beat 'em Up

• In God Hand, whenever Gene releases the titular God Hand, Broncobuster (a fast-paced Gene's Rock-A-Bye) plays.
• Lollipop Chainsaw uses "Hey Mickey" by Toni Basil when you go into Super Mode.

Fighting Game

• Super Smash Bros.:
  • Regular Hammer and Golden Hammer items, which act like the Hammer from the original Donkey Kong arcade game, though the Golden Hammer is from Wrecking Crew.
  • The Invincibility Power-Up item
  • Luigi's Brawl Final Smash, Dedede's Brawl Final Smash, Peach/Daisy's final smash and Donkey Kong's Brawl and 3ds/Wii U final smash.
• Bang Shishigami's Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan from BlazBlue: Calamity Trigger is a Super Mode that works like this: When you activate it, his power-up music begins to play loudly over the stage background music, until the next round begins.
• Guilty Gear Xrd, taking notes from BlazBlue, gives Sol Badguy his own theme song that overrides the background music when he activates Dragon Install.
  LET IT OUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUT!!!
• In Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, while Phoenix Wright remains in Turnabout Mode, all music is substituted for this song.

Maze Game

• In Digger, the background music changes from Popcorn to The William Tell Overture while a powerup is in effect.
• Pac-Man, as well as many of its sequels (Ms. Pac-Man, Jr. Pac-Man, Super Pac-Man, and so forth), makes a distinctive sound when the title character eats an energizer. Whether it qualifies as "music" could be argued, but Ms. Pac-Man and Jr. Pac-Man had the sound get higher and higher to indicate that the power-up period was nearing its end.
• In Wrecking Crew, a rather awesome music sounds when you get the Golden Hammer.

Platform Game

• Super Mario Bros. games use this a lot.
  • The Invincibility Power-Up (Super Star)
  • The caps from Super Mario 64 and SM64 DS
  • The Rainbow Star, Red Star, Fire Flower, and Ice Flower in Super Mario Galaxy and sequel.
  • The Mega Mushroom from New Super Mario Bros.
  • Riding a Yoshi in nearly every game he appears as a Power Up Mount, including Super Mario World and Super Mario Galaxy 2, adds extra percussion to the BGM.
    • In Super Mario Galaxy 2, when riding Yoshi and eating a Dash Pepper (which allows Yoshi to run much faster and run up walls), the BGM increases in tempo and also adds extra instruments.
  • The Star in the first Wario Land game
  • In Mario Kart Wii, you can hear the motif if another racer using a Super Star or Mega Mushroom is nearby.
• Bio Menace has a kind of rain-like music that lasts for the short time the invincibility potion lasts.
• Pick up the fast feet shoes in Jazz Jackrabbit and the level's music will speed up until they wear off; this is taken from Sonic The Hedgehog.
• Sonic The Hedgehog:
  • The series uses this for its invincibility sparkles. The song was different for each game, but they all lasted the same amount of time and worked identically.
  • Getting Power Sneakers to boost your speed increases the tempo of the current background music for their duration. Except in Sonic CD where there's separate music for Power Sneakers — because the music was being played directly from the CD and couldn't be sped up. The PC version of Sonic 3D Blast doesn't use the invincibility music, for the same reason.
  • Turning into your Super Mode (after collecting all seven Emeralds and 50 rings) would get its own theme that would play constantly as long as it was active. Sometimes it would be the same theme as the invincibility power up, and other games it would be its own unique theme song.
  • When you earn an extra life, the jingle lasts for a couple of seconds and often completely overrides the background music.
• In Banjo-Kazooie, using the Wonderwing power changes the background music for the duration.
  • Whenever you get a special pair of shoes/boots in the Banjo-Kazooie games, the background music changes until the power is used/worn out.
• Konami's Noah's Ark has a theme for Time Stands Still powerup and Invincibility Power-Up black vial powerup.
• The Sega Saturn version of Bug plays a fast version of the title theme when Bug gets a Stunt Bug powerup.
• Demon Sword also uses this for its Invincibility Power-Up. The Japanese version has a second invincibility theme, as well as additional motifs for the exclusive Flight, Dragon, and Chibi power-ups.
• Transformers: Convoy no Nazo has the music change when you get the barrier shield. This is the only indication that you have it at all.
• In The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Pumpkin King, an instrumental version of "What's This?" from the movie plays whenever Jack uses the Spicy Bottle to become the Pumpkin King.
• Kirby's Dream Land had two: one for the Invincibility Candy and one for the other power-ups. As the Invincibility Candy became a staple of the series, that song remained afterwards. The other one started getting phased out until Super Star Ultra and Air Ride remixed it for different reasons, though by now, it's more associated with Kabula.
• The Adventure Island series had one for Honey Girl and the Fluffy Cloud Heaven.
• The Invincibility Barrel in Donkey Kong Country games would add a rather simian-sounding repetition over the BGM.

Puzzle Game

• Trog has the pineapple theme when it's collected.
• In Puyo Puyo Fever, filling up the Fever gauge activates not only the titular bonus to flood your opponent's board, but also plays much bouncier music.

Racing Game

• Sonic And All-Stars Racing Transformed has the All-Star item that converts the racer into their flight form temporarily and makes them faster and virtually indestructible. Notable in that each character has different theme music while they have it activated and the music only plays for other racers when they're nearby.
• Forza Horizon 3 features the 'Skill Song' mechanic. At random intervals, a song is decided to become a Skill Song, and will provide you with double Experience Points for as long as it plays.

Role-Playing Game

• Each character in Bravely Default gets their own Power-Up Motif that begins after they perform a special move. Agnes gets Wind's Direction, Tiz has "You Are My Hope," Ringabel's is "Love's Vagrant," and Edea receives "Baby Bird." For the rest of the motif's minute and a half duration, all characters get a boost to the stat most relevant to the weapon used during the special move (physical attack for swords, crit rate for bows, magic defense and healing for staffs, etc.). If another special move is used before the first song ends, the stat boosts of both songs apply for the duration of the new song. Unless you use a third move, in which case the stat boosts of all three songs apply...
• In God Eater 2: Rage Burst, triggering the Blood Rage power-up will cause a snippet of a rock song named after the ability to play, indicating the form's duration. It's also a case of Long Song, Short Scene, as it only lasts for 30 seconds while the song is about 9 times as long.

Shoot 'em up

• Star Force and Star Soldier both have this with the weapon power-up.
• Early shooter Vanguard played a rendition of Vultan's Theme after touching an energy pod and becoming invulnerable.

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