Breather Level: Difference between revisions
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* The second game in the ''[[Shenmue]]'' series has a breather DISC. After storming the enemy hideout and facing a boss with incredible HP and who is completely immune to throws (possibly your bread and butter move for eliminating tough enemies at this point), the game finishes on a disc that is primarily a happy walk through the countryside with a cute girl.
* In ''[[Advance Wars]] 2'', the penultimate campaign level Hot Pursuit is typically regarded as a breather level between Great Sea Battle (where [[The Dragon]] is confronted) and Final Front (the final showdown with the [[Big Bad]]). Other, similar levels exist throughout the series. In this case, it is revealed that the level is intentionally easier {{spoiler|as bait for the Big Bad's trap}}. In hard campaign however, Hot Pursuit is generally considered the hardest level in the game (along with Show Stopper, Sinking Feeling and Great Sea Battle).
** ''Days of Ruin'' has Crash Landing, a straight forward battle that is opened and closed by the [[Unusual Euphemism
*** In Dark Conflict, the battle is still easy, but without the dialog.
** ''[[Battalion Wars]]'' has Black Gold, which has pitiful defenses because the enemy units that are scattered all over the place, which [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntm6SlgGuoE&fmt=18 this] takes advantage of.
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** In ''[[Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin]]'' certain rooms in the "Nest of Evil" [[Bonus Dungeon]] (usually placed before of after some of the most difficult fights, like a single Iron Golem before [[That One Boss]], Abaddon) are obviously intended as breather for the player.
** On the other hand, such things do not exist in the "Small Cavern" [[Bonus Dungeon]] (or [[Brutal Bonus Level]]) of ''[[Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia]]''.
** ''[[Castlevania: Symphony of the Night]]'' has the inverted castle, which is a copy paste of the main one. The thing is, you are completely left to your own devices, and can do it in any order, which often means you find yourself struggling in some hard areas before getting to some of the easier areas later on. This is further exacerbated by how fast you level up in the inverted castle, so it often depends what level you are when you reach an area as to whether it's a
* In the original ''[[The Legend of Zelda (video game)|The Legend of Zelda]]'', Level 7 in the first quest, and (even more so) Level 8 in the second quest. Despite being so late in the game, these dungeons are mostly filled with Goriyas, an enemy who first appears in Level 1, as well as a rematch against the bosses from Levels 1 & 2. The only real challenges these dungeons present are ''finding'' the entrances, and then finding your way through them. There's also no particular reason that the levels ''have'' to be played in order, so many smart gamers will get them out of the way earlier.
* As if retroactively bucking the trend of Zelda [[Down the Drain|water dungeons]], ''[[Zelda II: The Adventure of Link|Zelda II the Adventure of Link]]'' has a Water Temple filled with amazingly few high-level recolours, all of whom have more HP and some of whom have higher AI, even though you've been facing armies of the shield-fantastical blue [[Shield Bearing Mook|Iron Knuckles]] in the previous dungeons.
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** Turtle Rock in ''[[A Link to The Past]]''; a fairly straightforward romp with few difficult enemies that is more an exercise in puzzle-solving than ardent combat (And is also one of the few dungeons in the game with a mid-level break and an opportunity to complete a [[Heart Container]] midway), topped off with a boss that's [[Colour-Coded for Your Convenience]] with regards to its initial weaknesses. The preceding dungeon? The aptly-named Misery Mire. The following dungeon? The last one.
*** Blind's Dungeon (Thieves' Town) qualifies as well, even if activating the boss is somewhat of a (Simple) puzzle. Before, you have Skull Woods with a complicated layout, [[Wall Master|Wallmasters]], [[Demonic Spiders|Pikits]], and [[That One Boss|Mothula]]. After, [[Frictionless Ice|The Ice Palace]] with one of the most difficult puzzles of the game, which ''itself'' is wrapped in even more enigmas.
* An older example is ''[[Pac-Man]]'' and its spinoffs. The amount of time where monsters stay blue and edible generally goes down after [[
* Most ''[[Mega Man (video game)|Mega Man]]'' games contain at least one part in the final castle where you can just stock up on health and weapon energy, often before [[Boss Rush|going after the 8 previous bosses]].
* The mission "Devil" in ''[[Trauma Center (series)|Trauma Center]]''; you only have to kill a few bugs to pass it. The previous mission introduces Paraskevi, one of the hardest strains of GUILT, and the next mission introduces Savato, ''the'' hardest strain of GUILT.
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* Episode 12 of ''[[Elite Beat Agents]]'' (set to [[Chicago (band)|Chicago]]'s "You're the Inspiration") is as close to a breather level as they get in the game. It's much easier than the previous stages, but it's also {{spoiler|a HUGE [[Tear Jerker]].}}
* ''[[I Wanna Be the Guy]]'', of all games, has one: [[The Very Definitely Final Dungeon|The Castle of The Guy]] is, if not easy, at least fair (by IWTBTG standards). Then comes '''The Guy'''.
* ''[[Tetris the Grand Master]]'' has your drop speed decrease once you clear level 200, but from that point onwards, your speed will increase all the way to what ''Tetris'' fans call
* ''[[Mother 3]]'': Following a decidingly irritating dungeon and boss in chapter 5, chapter 6 is just one long [[Crowning Moment of Heartwarming]] for which all you need to do is hold left. Then comes chapter 7, the longest in the game.
* ''[[Parasite Eve]]'' has one. In day 2, you spend most of the day in Central Park, which is a huge "dungeon" with save points pretty spread apart. In the start of day 3, you're in Soho where you get to stock up on guns, armor, ammo, tools for tune ups, stat boosting items, curing items, and recovery items (although some of the really good stuff [[Pixel Hunt|are practically invisible]]). You then go the museum to advance the plot. Why such a generous break? The NYPD precint is under attack by Eve's minions after you come back to from the museum. The monsters have beefed up considerably (and you'll be dealing with monsters that can either lower your defense or cut your HP in half per hit) compared to the monsters you fought in day 2 at Central Park, due to being in a small building.
* In the second Subspace Bomb Factory stage in ''[[Super Smash Bros.]]. Brawl'', you'll eventually find yourself in a small room that consists of nothing but three Heart Containers and a long drop of an exit. This says nothing about the fact that the area is sandwiched between an autoscrolling area filled with hazards and enemies, and a boss fight with a timer. Of course, when you first play through this level, the Heart Containers would be redundant, since the area will be immediately followed by a movie introducing the boss, and you will have to choose a new lineup of characters, and when that happens, your health completely refills anyway.
** In the second portion of The Swamp, after [[That One Boss|beating Giant Diddy Kong]] is somewhat of a breather. Even [[Crowning Music of Awesome|the music from Yoshi's Island]] that is played in that level seems to suggest it.
* ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'' has two "chapters", Tanker and Plant. They can be played separately, but when playing the game straight through the first few objectives of the Plant chapter function as a breather
** ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'' has the Surface Tunnel. After fighting your way through hordes of cyborgs, hundreds of scout robots and a complicated boss, you get to use a {{spoiler|Metal Gear}} to destroy enemies which give you massive amounts of points, with a ''very'' lenient time limit and little chance of dying on most difficulty levels.
* It's a staple of the ''[[Disgaea]]'' series to include at least one level in each game consisting mostly or entirely of [[Everything's Better with Penguins|Prinnys]], who may or may not be arranged in a fashion that allows you to [[Made of Explodium|detonate every single one of them in a single throw]]. It's baseball in [[Disgaea: Hour of Darkness|the first game]], and bowling in [[Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories|the second]].
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{{quote|'''Prof. Frankly''': No fearsome monsters or dangerous dungeons, either! It's just a tourist attraction!}}
** Of course, there's still a pitstop at a dungeon and the obligatory boss fight, but compared to [[That One Level|the last chapter]] it's less annoying. Just be careful of the [[Demonic Spiders|Spiked Parabuzzies]].
* The AI Director in ''[[Left 4 Dead]]'' was intended to do this in
** The elevator ride in the 4th map of "No Mercy" is a mini breather level. As you ride up, no infected will come in to attack you, regardless of the hole in the elevator's ceiling. In VS mode however, this luxury is kind of taken away since actual people are controlling the special infected and could choose to jump through the hole and attack.
** In "Dead Center", the first campaign of the sequel, you are completely safe once you get through that gun shop door. No zombies of any sort will spawn until you touch that crescendo-triggering grocery store door.
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** ''[[Pokémon Diamond and Pearl]]'' may also buck the trend; while Candice herself is a [[Breather Boss]], you have to go through her Gym to get to her, and needless to say it's [[That One Puzzle]]...
** Subverted in ''[[Pokémon Gold and Silver]]'', where the fifth, sixth and seventh gym leaders can be battled in any order.
*** However, in Gold and Silver (arguably not their remakes, though), the entirety of Kanto could be considered a
* In ''[[Donkey Kong Country Returns]]'', [[Nintendo Hard]] is the phrase of the day throughout most of the game, but the level where you first get [[Powerup Mount|Rambi]] is not only a cakewalk, it's an empowering one; Rambi [[Took a Level In Badass]] since his last calling, and is now more or less an unstoppable horn-tank of pain, including being able to ''destroy spikes by touching them''. Unfortunately, after having a breezy level with Rambi, it's back to the fiery pit of borderline [[Platform Hell]].
** World 5, [[Lost Woods|Forest]], is this after the horrendously brutal World 4.
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* ''In [[Super Mario Galaxy]]'', this is the case with most of the beach themed levels. Beach Bowl Galaxy has no boss fights or tricky platforming and some ludicrously easy missions like passing the swim test, and Sea Slide Galaxy has mainly racing and item collecting missions with no real platforming or combat. Especially a breather considering the former comes before Ghostly Galaxy and [[That One Boss|Bouldergeist]] and the latter after the tricky Toy Time Galaxy. In [[Super Mario Galaxy 2]], you could probably count Starshine Beach as this as well, since minus an annoying green star it's again a rather sedate level with few tough enemies or jumps and a collectathon focus to it.
** In ''[[Super Mario 64]]'', possibly Snowman's Land due to it having an easy boss and much less of a focus on platforming than the others at that point in the game.
* ''[[Doom|DOOM II]]'' MAP19, "The Citadel" can be considered disappointingly easy since the level's difficulty contrasts its epic style (the level is a ''friggin' castle'', for pete's sake) and music ("Shawn's Got the Shotgun", the same BGM used in [[That One Level|MAP07]]). The enemies are generally limited to light sprinklings of lower-level [[Mook
* ''[[Mass Effect 3]]'' has the Geth Fighter Base, where Shepard is sent into the [[Cyberspace|Geth Consensus]] to destroy the Reaper code controlling a squad of geth. There's no real combat, and it mostly serves to give some insight into the events of the Morning War.
* ''[[Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg]]'' has 'After The Blizzard', the third mission in [[Slippy-Slidey Ice World|Blizzard Castle]]. It's a fairly simple mission in a small area with few enemies, and consists of building a head for a snowman. It comes right after Blizzard Castle's boss, [[That One Boss|Moles]], who can be a right sod to beat.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:Video Game Difficulty Tropes]]
[[Category:YMMV Trope]]
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