No-Gear Level: Difference between revisions

A level where the player is stripped of all weapons and equipment. It most often is [[Justified Trope|justified]] by having the character arrested/captured/imprisoned, but there are other means of losing your stuff, such as an airplane crash or shipwreck. They may be able to acquire new weapons and equipment, rebuilding their inventory as they go along, or may just have to complete a segment of the game by using abilities which are not so easily removed, such as [[Stealth -Based Mission|stealth]], [[Good Old Fisticuffs|unarmed combat]], or [[Functional Magic|innate powers or magical abilities]].

See also [[A Taste of Power]] (an inversion of this which gives you late-game equipment in the very beginning of the game), [[Second -Hour Superpower]] (when the first level is played without gear), [[Bag of Spilling]] (loss of equipment between games), [[So Long and Thanks For All Thethe Gear]] and [[No Item Use for You]]. A variant of [[Unexpected Gameplay Change]].

==== Non-Video Game {{examples ====}}

=== Gamebooks ===

==== VideoAction GameAdventure examples ====

** In ''[[The Legend of Zelda]][[The Legend of Zelda: theThe Wind Waker (Video Game)|: The Wind Waker]]'', Link arrives at the Forsaken Fortress via cannon and loses his sword in transit, requiring the use of stealth until the sword is recovered.

** ''[[The Legend of Zelda]][[The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess|: Twilight Princess]]'' has segments where Link become a wolf, rendering him unable to use weapons or items (the first time even involves you being captured and imprisoned). However, you can still fight about as well as you could in human form.

* During the final boss fight in ''[[Okami]]'', all of your brush powers, the ones that you spent the whole game acquiring, are stripped away. In order to get them back, you must damage the boss the old-fashioned way -- pummelingway—pummeling the crap out of it with melee attacks until you get them all back.

** Also occurs during normal gameplay if you are careless enough to run out of ink -- yourink—your weapon vanishes as well, leaving you to fight with tooth and claw. Horrible during boss fights. Luckily, ink replenishes.

* On your way to finally put down [[Big Bad|Gary]] in ''[[Bully (Videovideo Gamegame)|Bully]]'', you're met at the doors of the school and rather rudely stripped of ALL weapons. Including the infinite-ammo rubber-band ball and the infinite-ammo slingshot. It's [[Good Old Fisticuffs]] to finish your grudge.

* In ''[[Prototype (Videovideo Gamegame)|PROTOTYPE]]'', you lose access to all your selectable powers except for disguise for two whole chapters. Particularly annoying as it's an open world game, and you don't gain them back ''between'' chapters, limiting the number of side-missions you can do successfully at that time.

* The most annoying levels in ''[[Castlevania: Lords of Shadow]]'' feature the Chupacabra, a misnamed gnome-like thing that steals all your relics and magical items. You keep your fighting combos, but lose other skills like double-jump and dash, and you have no way to heal. When you catch up with the little runt he'll surrender your stuff, but sometimes there's a Cave Troll in between...

* ''[[Star Fox (Video Gameseries)|Star Fox Adventure]]'' has Fox get imprisoned and his magic staff (the only piece of equipment he has) taken off him in one stage. The stage thus revolves around sneaking around the prison and getting it back-then administering some much-deserved violence towards the jailers.

* ''[[Harry The Handsome Executive]]'' makes this slightly more bearable than some other examples -- theexamples—the same challenges that cost you your weapons gain you magical powers.

* ''[[Deus Ex (Video Game)|Deus Ex]]'', which makes the Warren Spector quote ironic as he was lead developer on the game. However, unlike many other games, you are immediately re-armed with a lot of good weapons and tools the moment you escape, making this much less of a pain, unless you rely too much on Assault Rifles or Shotguns.

** "The Missing Link", a DLC chapter for ''[[Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Video Game)|Deus Ex Human Revolution]]'', takes Adam's gear and disables his augmentations at the start. You retain your basic abilities, including Adam's [[One Hit KO]] takedowns, but you don't get your original gear back, since the chapter is stand-alone from the rest of the game.

** Late in ''[[Kingdom Hearts (Videovideo Gamegame)|Kingdom Hearts]]'', Sora loses the Keyblade and must fight through Hollow Bastion using only a toy wooden sword. This is eased, however, by having [[Beauty and Thethe Beast (Disney)|the Beast]] fighting alongside him. You can cast spells too, but that might not help so much if you're one of those who specialized in combat and since the Keyblade also enhances your magic, that ends up weakened as well.

** Happens again in ''[[Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days Over 2 (Video Game)|358/2 Days]]''. Xion can't remember how to use her keyblade, so you give her yours for a mission. What do you use? A stick.

** And again, in ''[[Kingdom Heartscoded (Video Game)|Kingdom Hearts coded]]'', when {{spoiler|Maleficent breaks Data Sora's Keyblade}}, to the point of it being a [[Mythology Gag]] now.

* ''[[Avalon Code]]'' has a particularly vicious form of this. The protagonist is a kid who's rather pathetic at combat but happens to come across the [[Upgrade Artifact|Book]] [[Artifact of Doom|of]] [[Great Big Book of Everything|Prophecy]] and becomes insanely proficient with any weapon that is literally pulled from within it. Then Chapter 5 ends {{spoiler|after the [[Big Bad]] tricks a character into stealing the Book from you and attempting to use it himself, and another villain steals it in the aftermath -- on top of an [[All of the Other Reindeer]] moment that neighbors [[Phantom Brave]] proportions}} and you're back to being a puny kid. Heath decides to fix that and teach you to fight without weapons -- whichweapons—which you have no choice but to do for the entirety of Chapter 6.

* In ''[[Revenant (Video Game)|Revenant]]'', there is absolutely no indication that you should be leveling your "Hand Combat" skill, until you are stripped naked and set to fight the [[This Is Gonna Suck|Ogrok Hand Combat champion]].

* In ''[[Ys (Video Game)|Ys]] IV: The Dawn of Ys'', you start out with the Cleria equipment from ''I and II'', but you are stripped of it and thrown in the dungeon shortly after.

* ''[[Rune]]'' was billed as a game where [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|manly vikings]], [[Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti|yetis]], [[Steampunk|dwarves]], and [[Zombie Apocalypse|giant zombies]] chop each other to pieces with swords so huge they don't even fit on the screen. While most of the game easily lives up to this, your character is [[Plotline Death|killed in a cutscene]] right after the [[Justified Tutorial|tutorial]], and then brought back to life in a dank underwater cavern with no weapons. You only get to do anything interesting after working your way through [[Underwater Ruins]] full of goblins, crabs, jellyfish and ''malignant sea anemones''.

** Played partially straight in the sequel, ''Jedi Academy'': there is a level in which the player is captured and stripped of all weapons and then has to escape. Gathering weapons is not difficult, as there are plenty lying around, but the player ''is'' denied one of the most powerful weapons in the game -- thegame—the lightsaber. This is deliberate on the part of Jaden's captor -- hecaptor—he's created a sort of sport out of letting dangerous prisoners try to escape while he hunts them down. Of course, he's never hunted a ''Jedi'' before, and doesn't consider finding a way to take away the other most powerful weapon in the game -- thegame—the characters force powers. (It makes a huge difference in this level whether you have third-level Force Lightning or not, because it enables you to fry all [[Mooks]] in front of you at once without aiming.)

** Also in predecessor ''Dark Forces'' -- Kyle—Kyle Katarn gets captured by Jabba the Hutt's henchmen and dropped into a pit with at least one krayt dragon. Fortunately, he can dodge its attacks and kill it with enough hits from his fists.

* Happens fairly early in ''[[Tron Two Point Oh (Video Game)|Tron 2.0]]''. Particularly irritating in that one of the weapons you lose costs energy to acquire in the first place -- energyplace—energy which might have been better spent elsewhere -- andelsewhere—and upon losing it you cannot retrieve it (you do eventually get your frisbee back, though, and are also given a new weapon to make up for it). And there are several infinite (and, until you leave the level, infinitely reusable) energy sources between the time you acquire the weapon and the time you are relieved of it.

** Partial example, partial reversal in ''Half-Life 2'': you're stripped of all weapons except for the gravity gun, [[Eleventh -Hour Superpower|which gets upgraded]].

* ''[[Duke Nukem 3D (Video Game)|Duke Nukem 3D]]'', captured by Pig Cops. After the ''second level''. And if one isn't paying attention, they'll die instantly at the start of the next level: the pigs are going to electrocute Duke via electric chair!

* ''[[Command and& Conquer|Command and Conquer: Renegade]]'', captured by stealth soldiers. However in this case you never get back the weapons taken from you, and have to rebuild your arsenal from almost scratch, save your pistol. Also interestingly, as soon as you rescue any given prisoner, they automatically get a gatling gun from [[Hammerspace|seemingly nowhere]]. You never recover your reliable, accurate assault rifle either. Sniff.

* Happens three times in ''[[Red Faction]]''. In both cases, you are able to rebuild your arsenal the same way you built it in the first place (taking guns off dead enemies), but whatever weapons and ammo you had originally are lost. On the plus side, one of these sequences can be skipped -- justskipped—just ignore [[Ninja Butterfly|Hendrix]]'s insistence that you need a disguise in the hospital.

* ''[[Crysis (Video Gameseries)|Crysis]]'' has this, using [[Cutscene Incompetence]] in that you get ambushed in a way that a real person never would; but it simultaneously invokes [[Cutscene Power to Thethe Max]] by letting you survive damage that a real person couldn't.

* In ''[[The Conduit]]'', you can finish a level armed to the max with your favorite weapons -- includingweapons—including rare super-weapons with [[One -Hit Kill]] capability -- andcapability—and then lose them all when you transition to the next level.

* ''[[BioBioShock Shock(series)]]'' has one section where you won't be allowed to advance unless you turn over all your weapons. You fight through the next area using only plasmids, though you can find one or two dropped guns. That said, it is possible and in fact quite easy to cheat and bring a weapon in with you, as the gate which opens when you surrender your guns doesn't close again if you pick up another one and it's possible to carry items around with the telekinesis plasmid without collecting them.

* ''[[Marathon (Video Game)Trilogy|Marathon]]'' has its fair share of this. It happens over five times when combining all three games. As Jason Jones once said, [[Word of God|"ah, grasshopper, the most accessable weapon of all is your own fists, you must learn to lay aside your weapons of steel and use your flesh."]] He said in response to some people saying how it was impossible to do a couple levels in the first game [[Self -Imposed Challenge|Vidmaster-style]] as there were no weapon pickups in those level, and Vidmaster-style means starting with level select (and by extension, nothing but a pistol plus a couple clips for it and your fists). There is one level which could not be completed using level select unless using mods, though, as getting out of the first room required triggering a switch remotely, and the pistol can't do that.

* ''[[Call of Duty]]: [[Modern Warfare]] 2'' has one of the most intense levels of the game, when Soap, Ghost, and Roach fight their way through a Favela. Near the end of the level, your squad requires you evacuate. Cue running across rooftops. Of course, you trip, miss a gap, and fall off a ledge and black out. You don't have time to reclaim your weapons, so you run half a mile through a massive slum to get back to the rooftops without the weapons you were kicking ass with earlier, with an entire militia on your tail, and make a breakneck jump to [[Predator|"get to the chopper"]], with a final leap that pays homage to the original daring escape made by Soap in Call of Duty 4 on the cargo rig.

* In the 'Sudden Death' mode of ''[[Team Fortress 2 (Video Game)|Team Fortress 2]]'', triggered when a match ends in a stalemate, all classes of both teams are forced to use their (in almost all cases quite damaging) melee weapons. [[Hilarity Ensues]]. (this originated as a custom game modifier [[Ascended Fanon|that Valve applied across the board]])

** One of the "Roll The Dice" results leaves you with only the use of your Melee weapons and nothing else. A slap on the wrist if you're next to your spawn, a death sentence for any spy behind enemy lines now left with only his knife (but no disguise kit or cloak watch).

=== MechaPlatform Game ===

* In [[KirbysKirby's Return to Dream Land]], when Kirby enters the other dimension through the openings unlocked from using the Ultra Copy Abilities, he loses his ability and must make his way through an obstacle course with only his normal moves.

=== Roguelike ===

* ''[[Ancient Domains of Mystery|ADOM]]'' twists this by making the player voluntarily give up his equipment. Just hanging inside the Tower of Eternal Flames, fire immunity or no, will randomly and permanently destroy things from your inventory (with fireproof blankets/rings of ice as a partial countermeasure). Falling down the Rift breaks a good portion of your currently carried inventory and the only way to diminish the effect is to have the few [[Cursed Withwith Awesome|good/not too awful]] corruption effects among an array of nasty ones. On both occasions the smart player is forced to stash most of their rarer belongings somewhere and having to get by with only the bare essentials. Using artifact weapons/armor is an option due to their indestructible nature, but they also accelerate the player's food consumption, making starvation a real possibility.

* In ''[[ChocobosChocobo's Dungeon|Final Fantasy Fables: Chocobo's Dungeon]]'', all of the special dungeons prevent you from bringing in items including gear from outside; upon entering, your inventory is put into your storage (if there isn't enough room in storage, you can't enter). Upon leaving the dungeon you get to keep everything you found inside and can go to storage to retrieve your former gear as well.

=== Role-Playing Game ===

* In ''[[Final Fantasy XII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy XII]]'', you're thrown in jail at one point and stripped of your equipment, but still get to keep all the spells and techniques you've acquired so far.

** Averted strangely in ''[[Final Fantasy V (Video Game)|Final Fantasy V]]'', where your party is sent to jail, but allowed to keep all their weapons and items. Going even further, they're in a cell right next to Cid, who was apparently allowed to keep enough explosives to blow a hole through the wall. The game contains a later instance where this trope is played straight.

** Similarly, in ''[[Final Fantasy X (Video Game)|Final Fantasy X]]'', your characters are tossed into a dungeon after being arrested and yet still have all of their weapons and equipment.

** In ''[[Final Fantasy VIII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VIII]]'' your characters are captured and thrown in prison with all their weapons taken from them. Not really a problem since one of your characters [[Good Old Fisticuffs|doesn't use weapons]]. So it's up to him to go alone through the prison to find the weapons (conveniently left in a pile where he can get them easily).

** Also in ''[[Final Fantasy VIII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VIII]]'' inflicts this trope on the ''player'' as well. When you enter the final boss's castle, all your combat-menu commands are sealed off, with the exception of standard physical attacks. To regain use of them in the castle, the heroes must win several lesser boss battles, with each victory unlocking a combat command of the player's choice.

** In ''[[Final Fantasy VII (Video Game)|Final Fantasy VII]]'', Yuffie steals all of your materia once you start the Wutai sidequest. (If you have a LOT of materia, she'll actually leave a few, but you're not likely to have enough at the point when the sidequest first opens.) This is extremely devastating since materia not only gives you your abilities, but it also alters your stats. Without materia, your party is severely gimped, even with the best weapons and armor. To rub the salt in the wound, any materia you find during the side quest is immediately stolen by Yuffie ''on the spot.''

* ''[[Chrono Trigger (Video Game)|Chrono Trigger]]'' has one of these, along with an earlier imprisonment that for some reason ''didn't'' dequip you. In at least one case, you indeed lose all your weapons (and all other items) and have to avoid the guards until you get them back, since your characters can't even defend themselves without a weapon equipped. Apparently, you can't cast magic or use tonics without a sword or gun. On the other hand, if your active party includes the [[Badass Normal]] cavewoman who [[Good Old Fisticuffs|laughs at such silly ideas as weapons]], she can go to town on them from the get-go.

* In ''[[Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter (Video Game)|Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter]]'', going into the [[Bonus Dungeon]] sets your level to one (temporarily, thankfully); it doesn't take your equipment, though, and it can be circumvented with Party [[Experience Points|XP]], which can be applied at will (and isn't restricted in said bonus dungeon).

* Early in ''[[Tales of Phantasia (Video Game)|Tales of Phantasia]]'', you are stripped of your weapons and tossed in jail, but quickly (and morbidly) retrieve a replacement Long Sword from the body of another prisoner who helps you escape with her last breath. You probably just replaced your starting Long Sword, so it's not too bad... but woe to the gamer too clever for his own good who got the very nice Knight's Saber before triggering the jail scene.

* In ''[[Ultima VII Part IITwo]]: Serpent Isle]],'' you are stripped of all your weapons early on by uncontrolled teleportation magic, but quickly scrape up at least serviceable weaponry. Later on, you are thrown into prison for a crime you may or may not have chosen to actually commit and stripped of all your weapons -- onlyweapons—only to discover that THIS is where the previous game's [[Infinity Plus One+1 Sword]] was teleported at the start! The weapon retains all its previous power. Your windfall doesn't last you long, though: To escape the prison, you must destroy the gem in your sword, rendering it powerless -- withpowerless—with the demon contained within killing the [[Big Bad]] of the prison in a rather gory fashion, letting you escape. You still get some other loot in this sequence, meaning that when you get your existing equipment back you end up the richer for having been imprisoned.

* ''[[Mother 3 (Video Game)|Mother 3]]'' has you lose your entire inventory in an undersea whirlpool after a boss that just can't accept defeat. Your entire party washes up on shore with only 1 HP each, 0 PP, & whatever was equipped during the battle. A monster blocks the way and will annihilate your party in their current state. In their desperation, they resort to [[Stupidity Is the Only Option|eating mushrooms growing near where they washed up]] with [[Nightmare Fuel|predictable]] [[Mushroom Samba|results.]] (You do get your stuff back on the other side of the jungle, though, after meeting a friendly octopus.)

* ''[[Nethergate]]'' has the three Crones do this to you if you're playing a party of Celts. You do get your equipment back after escaping their maze, and it's not especially difficult. However, it takes [[But Thou Must!]] to infuriating levels, since you can't get across a certain bridge to progress the plot until you go through this sequence.

* At one point in the first ''[[Xenosaga (Video Game)|Xenosaga]]'' game your party is captured and locked in a room without your weapons. But don't worry, you have [[Good Old Fisticuffs|chaos]] in your party and he gets to fight the guards on his own.

* ''[[Manhunt]]'' does this after every level.

* Happens twice in ''[[Commandos (Video Game)|Commandos]] 2'' and once in ''[[Commandos (Video Game)|Commandos]] 3''.

* The first third of the ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)]]: [[Dark Corners of the Earth]]'' is played like this, and after that you still lose all your weapons in several occasions to retain the horror feel. Once you're strangely quickly given a pistol, even though the only monster in the level is utterly immune to bullets, and in other time you're reduced to a pistol, even though you would think that being sent to help a party of soldiers would call for ''more'' arsenal.

* In ''[[Dead Space 2]]'', the first level consists of running past necromorphs in a straitjacket. Oh, and to make matters worse, Isaac's health bar is alarmingly low. Have fun.

* ''[[Destroy All Humans!]]'', when Crypto's craft gets shot down in Union Town and he gets caught by Majestic.

* The ''[[Max Payne (Video Gameseries)|Max Payne]]'' games do this:

* ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' has several of these areas:

{{quote| '''The Courier''': "[[Two Words|Five Words]]. From. My. Cold. Dead. Hands."}}

* In order to complete the "Penal Ties" mission in the Residential district of ''[[Grand Theft Auto II (Video Game)|Grand Theft Auto II]]'', you have to get arrested, and thereby get stripped of all your weapons.

* The last story mission of ''[[Grand Theft Auto III (Video Game)|Grand Theft Auto III]]'' sees you stripped of the possible [[Hyperspace Arsenal|thousands-of-pounds of weaponry and ammunition you might be carrying]] in the opening cutscene before you punch out a guard and steal his pistol. The rest of the mission requires you to keep pace with your fleeing ex-girlfriend turned crime lord while properly re-arming yourself to stay alive and eventually shoot down the helicopter she's escaping in. If the player finds many of the packages and is swift with a vehicle, it is possible to swing by a safehouse and load up on the goodies.

* In ''[[Grand Theft Auto Vice City (Video Game)|Grand Theft Auto Vice City]]'', Tommy is asked to ''persuade'' someone to part with some land by going to the country club and beating the crap out of him. There's a metal detector at the entrance which places all your weapons outside (you can pick them up again when you leave) -- but this trope is subverted because it is possible to jump over the outside wall and enter the country club with all your equipment. The metal detector only takes away your guns and grenades, though. Entering with a chainsaw is perfectly fine.

* In ''[[Grand Theft Auto San Andreas (Video Game)|Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas]]'', CJ loses all his guns after the helicopter he's gunning down from gets... gunned down and crashes in water. You must then make your way aboard the gangster-ridden container ship you were attacking and acquire guns by killing gang members. (Or {{spoiler|you can simply swim ashore, buy new weapons, and go back}}). Another mission, Stowaway, has CJ inside a plane loaded with explosives (possibly landmines). Shooting in there is not forbidden, no - but one shot that misses a government agent mook in there means hitting the explosives and the whole thing goes kaboom. Players are likely to resort to melee weapons or unarmed combat in there, risking no such thing - especially since getting into the plane in the first place is [[That One Level|That One Level Part]] players are unlikely to want to repeat. <ref>Driving up to and then up a narrow ramp of said plane, while it's taking off, on a motorbike, and with barrels rolling out of the ramp every once in a while. And the plane has quite a lot of head start...</ref>

* ''[[Scarface the World Is Yours (Video Game)|Scarface the World Is Yours]]'' does this in the mission where Tony returns to Freedomtown, confiscating his weapons and springing an ambush on him. It also does... something like this at the start of the assault on the [[Very Definitely Final Dungeon]], dropping all the stuff in Tony's [[Hyperspace Arsenal]] for a Desert Eagle and rather limited ammo. You have to collect guns off fallen enemies to keep fighting.

=== Miscellaneous Games ===

* In the story mode of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh! 5 Ds5D's|Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's Stardust Accelerator]]'', the player gets sent to jail after breaking into Neo Domino City, duel runner and cards confiscated in the process. While you use borrowed cards to win your freedom, it takes a little [[Stealth -Based Mission]] to get your stuff back.

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