Restart At Level One: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

* In ''[[Okami]]'', you play as a god in wolf form recently brought back from death, severely weakened [[Gods Need Prayer Badly|after 100 years of rapidly declining faith amongst mortals.]]

* The ''[[Castlevania]]'' series is known to explain this in it's games.

** Fortunately however you keep the best of those weapons, the left-arm hidden blade that had a built-in pistol and poison blade, and Ezio is issued a basic straight sword upon waking up in Rome. As importantly, he also retains most of the moves from the previous game, along with the new kill streak moves that were introduced in ''Brotherhood'' before and during the attack on Monteriggioni.

 

* In ''[[God of War]] II'', Kratos loses nearly all of his godly powers in the opening cutscene. Zeus eventually "helps" Kratos by giving him a sword. Kratos then, in order to get the sword out of the ground, had to drain all of his powers into the sword. The third game has Kratos eventually fall into the River Styx, where he is mobbed by the souls within several times before making it to shore. By then, he's been drained of whatever powers he had.

* In ''[[Conan the Barbarian|Conan]]'''s [[Justified Tutorial]], you start with a fully-armored Conan who makes short work of the nasty spirits in a tomb, but then he frees the wrong [[Eldritch Abomination]], washes up half-dead on an island without any armor or memory of what happened, and then spends the rest of the game recovering his armor and skills (the same spirits are much harder to beat when you get back to the tomb from the start of the game). To be fair, though, even starting-level Conan is pretty [[Badass]].

 

* Prior to ''[[Dark Forces Saga|Jedi Knight II]]'', Kyle Katarn invoked this trope and sealed himself off from [[The Force]] for fear of falling to [[The Dark Side]] again.

* ''[[Left 4 Dead]] 2'' has a variation of this trope. After being dropped off to find some fuel for the boat in "Hard Rain", one of the survivors asks if someone brought the weapons with them. They quickly realize they forgot and left the weapons on the boat.

* Prestige Mode in every [[Call of Duty]] game since ''[[Modern Warfare|Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare]]'', although you get extra custom class slots and are compensated with some bonus EXP along the way to help with leveling back up.

 

* In ''[[Mabinogi Fantasy Life|Mabinogi]]'', your character can "rebirth" at any time, starting over anywhere between age 10 and 17 and reverting to level 1. In a subversion, however, this is actually how you'rs suppossed to ''gain'' power. As you level, you earn AP, which you can spend to increase skill ranks, which in turn get you stat bonuses. While rebirth loses you all the stat points you gained from experience levels themselves, you keep your skill ranks and the bonuses, as well as your inventory. Then you get to take advantage of the fast level gain for a starting character to earn ''more'' AP.

 

* In the ''[[Metroid]]'' series, Samus starts every game with no [[Heart Container|spare E-tanks]], a minimum of equipment and must acquire new items to expand the area the player can explore. In a few cases such as [[Metroid Prime]], Samus starts out with [[A Taste of Power]] but an incident shortly during/after the introductory level resets the player to minimum status.

* X of the [[Mega Man X]] series usually subverts this in that, while he starts a new game without the armor, weapons, tanks, and other powerups from the last game, he has a tendency to keep abilities he's used before. As of X8, he's kept the first two dash powerups, and the fourth level charge shot power of the first game.

* ''[[Sonic 3 and Knuckles|Sonic the Hedgehog 3]]'' ([[One Game for the Price of Two|and Knuckles]]) has the opening scene where Sonic gets the Chaos Emeralds knocked out of him. After collecting said Emeralds, you lose them again in the second half of the game. Though the next power up is a [[Game Breaker]].

 

* ''[[Blur (video game)|Blur]]'' has Legend Mode, which is similar to ''[[Modern Warfare]]'''s Prestige, except each time you enter Legend Mode, you unlock a special Legendary car that you get to keep on the next trip up the [[Character Level|fan level]] ladder.

 

* Most RTS games don't allow the upgrades you've achieved in one mission to carry over to the next mission.

* Between the end of the first and the start of the second campaign of ''[[Warcraft]] 3'' Arthas goes from a L10 Paladin to L1 Death Knight.

** Averted in the expansion, all heroes from the original game start out at level 10 (max). Though Arthas actually loses levels over the course of the Undead campaign due to the Lich King's weakening (until the final mission where he rapidly goes up from level 1 to 10).

 

* In the ''[[Pokémon Mystery Dungeon]]'' games, when you enter a particularly rewarding dungeon (such as getting Jirachi), you are forced to become level one for the dungeon. What makes it worse, is that the dungeon has 99 floors! It takes forever to do so, and usually if you're recruiting a pokemon, it starts out at a very low level, which is not too rewarding, unless you're going for 100% completion.

* In ''[[ZHP]]'', the protagonist resets to Level One every time he dies or completes a dungeon. However, what levels he gained in the dungeon are added to his "Total Levels" which gradually increase his base stats, meaning that his "Level One" starts to become a very, very powerful Level One.

 

** Played straight ''[[The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings|The Witcher 2 Assassins of Kings]]''. There is no explanation given for why the same guy who had become a one-man-army by the end of the first game is getting his ass kicked every time he faces more than two opponents in the Prologue.

* ''[[Gothic]] II'' explains this by the [[No Name Given|Nameless Hero]] being resurrected after being buried under rocks for several weeks at the end of the first game.

* Adol is back to level one, usually without the fancy equipment from the previous game, in each of the [[Ys]] games. Given how frequently he starts a game by being seriously injured and needing to spend several days in bed (Usually due to falling off a ship or the ship sinking outright), this is actually justified on occasion.

 

* As noted in our page quote, the [[Player Character]] of ''[[X (video game)|X2: The Threat]]'' and ''X3: Reunion'' are the same guy, reset to level one with his former assets having gone poof.

 

* ''[[Disgaea]]'' mentions at one point Laharl isn't back up to strength after oversleeping 720 days {{spoiler|because of Etna poisoning him}}

** The sequel also has Etna brought down from level 1000 to level 1 due to a summoning ritual gone bad. {{spoiler|It was her fault it went wrong anyway}}.

* Many ''[[Super Robot Wars]]'' games that have continuing sequels, such as the ''[[Super Robot Wars Alpha]]'' series, ''[[Super Robot Wars Z]]'' series and ''[[Super Robot Wars Original Generation]]'' series, tend to do this. You could have had the best items, the greatest units, and all of the skills you need to really tear evil a new one, but come the next game, they toss it all away. A lot of the time, it's justified - the initial threat is gone, so there's no need for all of that now.

 

* Not exactly with video games, but in the ''[[Pokémon]]'' anime, Pikachu should be at an extremely high level, but always seems to return to level 1 at the start of a new series.

** Not to mention Ash himself, who, despite placing high in nearly every single League he's entered, no matter what awesome things he's done, is ''always'' treated as a rookie trainer whenever he enters a new region.

** When listing Ash's accomplishments, the only ones mentioned are the ones from the current region. Before the start of Unova, he has earned 32 badges and 7 Frontier Symbols; He is Champion of the Orange League, placed Top 16 in the Indigo League, Top 8 in both the Johto League and Hoenn League, and ''Top 4'' of the Sinnoh League; It's implied he would have won had he beaten Tobias. He has faced off with and defeated or befriended at least one member of each Legendary species, aside from that ever-elusive Ho-oh, and several of some of them. He's still treated like he's a newbie with no experience, even by the writers.

 

* In the original ''[[The Karate Kid]]'' series, Daniel is trained by Mr. Miyagi to become a karate champion, but in the second film, he is ''still'' getting his butt kicked in Okinawa with barely any evidence that he knows anything about fighting. Only the ice sheet chopping scene and the climactic fight have Daniel fight like he was trained by the [[Old Master]].

** Justified in that he's been learning for a few months, only having a few fights under tournament regulations. In Okinawa the people he fights have been learning for most of their lives and engage in street fights.

 

* In ''[[Alien Dice]]'', a brutal deconstruction of the [[Mons]] genre, both the dice and Lexx himself are reset at the beginning of each round. The dice starting out on whatever level their die initially landed and Lexx getting knocked back ten levels.

 

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