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Low-Level Run: Difference between revisions
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* ''[[Super Mario RPG]]: Legend of the Seven Stars'' similarly features an item that allows the player to gamble the experience he earns. The item is intended to be a bonus, but it can also be used to deliberately retard the characters' development. Therefore, it's possible to beat the game with the characters at level 14 or below, almost half of the recommended level for the endgame.
** There is, in fact, a [http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/file/588739/24216 walkthrough] available on [http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/snes/game/588739.html GameFAQs] detailing steps to complete the game without having Mario advance beyond Level 3. The Level 3 Run is possible mostly because it is possible to turn Mario's standard 3 FP Jump attack into a [[Disc One Nuke]]. For later portions of the game, usage of [[Guide Dang It|some hard to find]] items such as the Star Egg and Lazy Shell is necessary to turn Bowser into a [[Stone Wall]].
* It is possible to go through the ''[[Paper Mario]]'' games with the starting stats of 10HP and 5FP. Level-ups are given to the Badge Points (which do nothing [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|except equip badges]], which can modify attack, defense, etc.) What makes it difficult is that enemies have ''high'' attack power late to post-game. ''[[Paper Mario:
* Every ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' game has had someone do this, including the ones that don't actually use levels:
** Performing a [[Low-Level Run]] for much of ''[[Final Fantasy VI]]'' is essential to those looking to max out their stats as much as possible, keeping levels as low as possible (by avoiding battles, juggling characters when you have to fight, and manipulating when characters rejoin the group) until the player has the right espers, which each grant a different stat boost when the character holding them levels up. The endeavor is helped by a few [[Good Bad Bugs]] such as the Vanish-Doom [[Game Breaker]] and isn't a ''strict'' low level run, as it still allows free [[Level Grinding]] of [[Guest Star Party Member|Guest Star Party Members]] and (at certain times) characters who can't equip espers to gain strength and money. <ref>Incidentally, bosses give no EXP in FFVI.</ref>
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** An allegedly popular set of challenges in ''[[Diablo (series)|Diablo]] II'' are the 1@17, 2@20, 3@30 Diablo kills -- basically, killing the final boss on a difficulty setting at the earliest possible level. To use the Hell entrance in Normal difficulty requires a character level of 17, to access Nightmare difficulty requires a level of 20, and Hell difficulty is accessible at 30. Each challenge is to be attempted solo, though you are not required to attempt or complete any of the earlier challenges to attempt the coveted 3@30.
** There's also the literal lowest-level-possible challenge, which can be attempted only using outdated patches. And we have the Ironman challenges of various difficulty, the impossible no-items-no-skills-no-stats challenge, and of course any build or item choice less than optimal will be challenging at least to defend against hecklers.
* ''[[
* ''[[Star Control]] II'' is the most extreme example of this. Although there's no such thing as levels, you can play through the entire game without ever visiting the Rebel Base at Earth. From there you have no upgrades to your flagship, a ''very'' short supply of fuel, very few combat ships (gained via alliance pacts, which are rare in themselves) and to top it all off, [[Beef Gate|a new enemy appears every day (about five seconds in real time) headed right at you]]. You are ''screwed''. The worst part is that even if you can consistently fight off the enemies with 0 damage, each battle resets your ships direction, and due to lack of upgrades, you're forced to travel everywhere with the slowest possible rotation rate and ship speed. Did I mention there's a time limit in the game?
** This was discovered ''more than ten years'' after the game was released, and was not an intended feature. Unfortunately, playing the game like this made it crash immediately before [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon]] (where, in the normal course of things, there's a sequence involving the Rebel Base). Fortunately, by the time it was discovered, the game was already open source and the bug could be fixed easily.
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** This can also be done in the original [[Kingdom Hearts II]] by hacking, due to the fact that Antiform has the EXP Zero ability by default.
** In ''[[Kingdom Hearts: 358 Days Over 2|358/2 Days]]'', you only increase in level by equipping level-up panels. This allows you to play through the entire game at Level 1, if you want.
** Likewise in ''[[Kingdom
* The closest thing you can do in "Pokemon" to a more conventional low-level run is the "[[Not Allowed to Grow Up|No Evolutions]]" run. It isn't ''quite'' as difficult as you still earn experience, but most players couple this with a "[[Solo Character Run|(Enter Species Here) Only Run]]". [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRZhCXsg4GI Observe].
** Behold: [http://www.megavideo.com/?v=CR3CGTHZ Level 7 Mew takes on the Elite Four.] The input wasn't recorded in real time, but no cheats were used. Of course, the Elite Four gives so much experience to a battler that it's hardly a low-level run by the end.
** [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SkVT1KjojCk Cynthia has now been beaten by a team of level 1's.]
** To prevent people from downloading the newest games, [[Pokémon Black and White|Black and White]], a "no experience" security patch was added. A lot of people actually use said patch to challenge themselves.
* Since you only gain a level in ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] [[The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion|IV: Oblivion]]'' when you gain 10 points in your major skills and then sleep, it's relatively simple to acquire very high skill levels while remaining at experience level 1. And since the game's [[Level Scaling|difficulty scales with your level]], this is arguably easier than gaining levels the traditional way. Your attributes and equipment will suffer, though. In order to beat the main quest, you must complete at least one of the Daedric artifact quests, each of which has a minimum level, although some are as low as two. It's still possible to complete the game at level 1, but this requires killing an NPC who is about as powerful as the game engine will allow, then giving up her [[Infinity+1 Sword]] to short-circuit the quest's level requirement. Alternatively, if you're willing to gain just one level, you can complete the easiest Daedric artifact quest in the game instead.
** ''[[The Elder Scrolls]] [[The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind|III: Morrowind]]'' was even more extreme, as the alchemy process was considered a [[Game Breaker]]: Because the game was paused when the player stopped to brew potions, a player could brew an INT boosting potion that lasted a short time, drink it, and then immediately brew another potion that provided an even greater bonus (as alchemy stat bonuses were affected by your INT stat), and it would stack to absurd levels until you could create a potion that restored your entire health pool many times over each second for an hour. This allowed the player to wield the game's [[Infinity+1 Sword]] without worrying about the required protection (the sword would kill the player without a specific gauntlet to protect them). This exploit can be used to beat the game in under 10 minutes. Oblivion capped this by preventing the player from benefiting from most stat bonuses past 100 (the usual limit).
* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'' has two different forms of this; Level 1 Gnome (or Tauren) races often end in an opposing faction's capital, and making your way through is an exercise in aggro management and sheer patience. On the other hand, it's possible to enter many raid dungeons five levels before you are supposed to (the game simply refuses anyone of lower level than that).
** There are videos of people solo-ing 25-man raid bosses using just the right combination of exploits. Iin particular, someone figured out that a warlock could kite one of the bosses in Serpentshrine Caverns by throwing instant-speed dots and running up and down stairs a lot.
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* A ''[[River City Ransom]]'' tool-assisted [http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6837837618559851663&ei=GzbfSsvpFqjWqAOU_NAE&q= speedrun] is much faster if it disregards [[Power Levelling]] and simply runs to each successive boss and takes them down. Of course, by the final boss fight, it's quicker to trick Simon into attacking himself.
* ''[[Earthbound]]'' is both an excellent low level run and a terrible one. The first play area, Onett, turns out to be the biggest challenge in the game; defeating Frank and Frankystein is possible but difficult, but defeating Titanic Ant is virtually impossible without abusing savestates in an emulator, or leveling up once or twice to improve your chances. After that, it's relatively easy in terms of gameplay. However, purists will still find challenge in attempting to dodge seemingly forced battles, including a miniboss fight. At its worst you'll find yourself scrambling for one pixel to avoid a fight.
* The soullevel 1 challenge in ''[[
* The ''[[Gothic]]'' expert "[[The Wonderer]]" has beaten Gothic II with Expansion with level 6. You can download the videos [http://www.worldofgothic.de/dl/download_207.htm here] (in german).
* The [[Epic Battle Fantasy]] series (as well as [[Spin-Off|Bullet]] [[Bullet Hell|Heaven]]) allow the player to simply not upgrade, in a somewhat similar way to the sphere grid in ''[[Final Fantasy X]]''. Bullet Heaven in particular can get really nasty; compare the first [[Bonus Boss]] of four (and yes, the others do get harder) on a [[Low-Level Run]] [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlKzSvY8T8M here] to that same boss [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8UM9VCadUg fought with full upgrades].
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