10 Video Game Mechanics That Make No Sense
7. Double Jumping
The ability to double jump is so widespread throughout platforming and action-adventure games that you probably haven't even thought about how ridiculous and "unrealistic" it is.
The basic physics of our world dictate that jumping is achieved by pushing off from a surface with sufficient force to propel yourself, but what exactly are you leaping from to perform a second jump? Thin air isn't a pliable, scalable surface, and so gravity dictates that a double jump is scientifically impossible.
But as Mario, Crash Bandicoot, and hundreds of other platformers have cemented over the years, double jumping just feels right in video games, and when a platformer doesn't offer the ability to stack a jump on top of another, it feels really damn weird.
A few games have at least attempted to offer plausible explanations, perhaps most memorably Devil May Cry, where Dante's double jump (aka Air Hike) ability creates a temporary platform for him to leap off.
It may be unrealistic, but this is one of those mechanics that's so satisfying and feels so intuitively "correct" that taking it away would just piss a lot of people off.
Most realistic video games at least tend to avoid using double jump, and so it's generally only reserved for more heightened experiences that play fast and loose with the laws of physics anyway.