History Main / BagOfSpilling

** Averted in ''Submachine 2: The Lighthouse''. ''Submachine 1'' ended with you holding a diary page, a Wisdom Gem and a 50 Eurocent coin, and you still have the page and gem (not the coin, but then [[MindScrew you start off standing in front of a coin-op Submachine 1 game]]). The gem is actually useful as well.

** At the start of ''Submachine 6: The Edge'', you still have the notes, cipher plates and wrench from ''Submachine 5'' but you have to deposite them in a bin before the Machine will let you proceed. Not that they'd have been any use here.

* ''[[VideoGame/HamtaroHamHamHeartbreak Hamtaro: Ham-Ham Heartbreak]]'' justifies Hamtaro losing all of the Ham-Chat words from his dictionary by having him fall in a bucket of water at the start of the game, ruining his dictionary.
* The TelltaleGames ''SamAndMaxFreelancePolice'' games plays it straight and subverts it at times. A lot of the items are tossed out in between chapters, but a few are either kept in their inventory later on or handwaved with where it was. For instance, the hypnotizing-proof helmet from the very first game is said to be permanently woven into Sam's hat.

* ''Franchise/FireEmblem'' avoids this beautifully in the move between ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTellius Path of Radiance]]'' and its sequel ''Radiant Dawn'', by having each character able to gain an additional 20 levels (going from two Class tiers to three). So only a handful of characters really lost any level, stats, or experience. The only notable loss was that the main character Ike gave his Legendary weapon Ragnell to the Kingdom of Begnion as its rightful owner.

* ''InazumaEleven'' trilogy play with this. in each sequel, every character's levels are reduced to one, but they do have better base stats than in the previous game's level one. Major characters' skill losses are based on if they will require new skills in that game or not, since they only have four fixed ability slots out of six avaliable in each game. Thus they can't retain everything.

* Downplayed in ''[[DragonBall Buu's Fury]]''. You start off at an even higher level than when the previous game ended. However, your stats at lowered to about half of what they were in the previous game.

* Creator/TerryPratchett said in an interview that the ''{{Discworld}}'' character of The Luggage was born out of early D&D roleplaying as a take on the Bag of Holding idea. In theory it was a handy depository for captured booty, of infinite capacity, and capable of carrying things on its hundreds of dear little legs so that the players did not need to bother about weight limitations. But players in the game soon learnt that unless they gave The Luggage ''really precise'' instructions and kept track of what direction it was walking in, it soon became a Bag of Losing. In the books, the evolved character of The Luggage will still carry things for you. But it acts as a portal to an unspecified Other (witness its ubiquity as a corpse-disposal system) and has a mind of its own. Putting something in there is no guarantee that you'll ever see it again. It certainly carries a massive amount of gold bullion, for instance: but this has only been seen ''once''.

* At the beginning of ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaTheTwoThrones'', as he is about to make port, the Prince throws the Amulet of Time overboard, thinking he doesn't need it anymore. Cue his ship being sunk by a catapult while the Water and Light Swords you worked so hard for in ''[[VideoGame/PrinceOfPersiaWarriorWithin Warrior Within]]'' are below decks. Fortunately, he retains all of his melee combat abilities.

* ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'' in general gets away with this, because the levels in it are fairly abstract -- you generally just lose your best units for a while for various reasons. For instance, you get Shin Getter Robo and Mazinkaiser for the first few missions, but during a time jump, you are forced to ship them back home for repairs. In the ''[[VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsOriginalGeneration Original Generation]]'' games, your characters generally keep their better units, though in some cases they have to go and pick them up out of storage.
** ''[[VideoGame/SuperRobotWars4 Super Robot Wars Final]]'' allows you to carry everything over to the sequel, ''F Final''. If you don't use that, instead you're given a lump sum of cash to use, and you don't get any of your upgraded units. The same happens in ''VideoGame/{{Super Robot Wars Z}}2.2'' to a certain degree.
** In ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWarsAlpha'' you get Mazinkaiser and Shin Getter Robo, so in each subsequent game they have to come up with various excuses as to why the characters downgraded to Mazinger Z and Getter Robo G at the start of the next game. Such explanations included correcting a power imbalance or undergoing maintenance when the team gets sent to the future.
** ''Alpha 2'' uses a ContinuityNod explanation: in the previous game, the bad guys managed to pull a GrandTheftPrototype on Mazinkaiser, and the heroes recovered it by exploiting a flaw (a blind spot created by its [[MechaExpansionPack flight pack]]). At the start of ''Alpha 2'', you get Kaiser but not the flight pack, since Professor Yumi is trying to remove said blind spot so future villains can't exploit it themselves. ''Alpha 3'' continues this train of nods as you keep the ''Alpha 2''-era Kaiser and Shin Getter, but they are recalled early on; Kaiser to regain his Scrander and Shin Getter to fix a massive power imbalance.

* Happens in ''{{Franchise/Metroid}}'' games, often with some justification such as Samus's equipment becoming infected or damaged. ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'' goes with a different justification than the other games: Samus still has all the upgrades and weapons, [[HonorBeforeReason but chooses to not to use them without permission from Adam]].

** The fanfiction "FanFic/{{Repairs}}" has Samus play Bag of Spilling straight... then subverts it. She can still use her abilities, albeit in a more limited fashion, and using them before they're ready again makes their repairs take longer.

* ''{{Franchise/Castlevania}}'':

* In ''PrincessTomatoInTheSaladKingdom'', your sidekick Percy carries most of your stuff. Every now and then -- usually after you've completed a major event or reached the end of a chapter -- he informs you that whoops! He's dropped, lost, or otherwise misplaced some of it! Fortunately, none of what he loses is actually ''required'' to complete the game; think of it as an involuntary inventory reduction.

* Played straight through the ''VideoGame/SpaceQuest'' series--Roger Wilco doesn't retain equipment from one game to the next. With the exception of the Orium crystal from II, which Roger starts with in III. Also, the ''effects'' of another item carry over from II to III: acquiring the free-but-not-really Labion Terror Beast Mating Whistle in II leads to the Arnoid hunting Roger during III. This happens even if you ''didn't'' get the whistle, since it is optional. However, the sixth game shows that he does keep some of the items from all his adventures: they are all on the table in his quarters aboard the ''[=DeepShip 86=]''.

** Averted in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity''. Once Bruce Wayne manages to gear up as Batman, he starts with most of the gadgets he acquired in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum''. The only major piece of equipment he doesn't carry over (the Line Launcher) is given to him roughly halfway through the game. It's even [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Alfred when Batman calls in the Line Launcher. He asks Batman if he's ever considered taking up a bigger UtilityBelt. Batman's response? Tried it, too heavy, weighted him down (no doubt a reference to the No Man's Land comic run where, as he was out in costume roughly 20 hours a day, he built a larger belt to handle a larger variety of crime fighting gear).
** Although, it's still present to some extent. Some upgrades that he had in Asylum need to be purchased again, even though they would be massively useful in every-day Bat-manning. (Critical Strikes and Combo boost come into mind)

** In TalesOfMonkeyIsland, an EpisodicGame, Guybrush loses some items between chapters while keeping others, sometimes with no explanation, but the justification can be that those items aren't useful anymore so he just discards them, at one point a lost item could be very helpful and Guybrush says that he lost it.

* Averted in ''Banjo-Tooie'', where the main characters are able to use ''every'' power they acquired in the previous game, ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie''. This is compensated for by making them gradually acquire even ''more'' powers. They still lose a lot of HP and carrying capacity. Played straight in ''Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts'', as Banjo and Kazooie lose their abilities due to years of being fat and lazy. Their lack of their abilities is often lampshaded.

* ''Roleplay/OutpostDefenders'' removes all of the players, all of the shop items, all of the money, and all of the non-{{Pokemon}} allies every new game. And as of Outpost Defenders III, not even stats are immune to this.

* ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot'' games starting with ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot3Warped'' had a bad tendency of this; over the course of the game, Crash would get a variety of new moves from defeating bosses only for the next game to start him with his standard abilities only and the new ones having to be unlocked again, frequently in a similar order. Some games eventually wisened up on this:

* Justified in ''VideoGame/TalesOfXillia2'', at least in the case of the party's combat abilities, which were stated to have been provided to them in part by the Lillium orbs. They've ceased working and were replaced by the new Arrowcell orbs, which eventually allow them to surpass their previous potential. Still no explanation as to what they did with all of their fancy gear, though.

* Played straight with [[spoiler: Judas]] in ''VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny2''. [[spoiler: Even with only being playable for half of the first game, Leon]] should probably be stronger than he is when you meet him... Perhaps Justified in that he was [[spoiler: dead for quite some time,]] and Subverted in that he [[spoiler: does still have Chaltier, but using him would reveal his identity.]]

* Most of the party in ''VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny2'' is not the same, and Stahn and Rutee have most likely sold most of their old gear to pay for running their orphanage, so Kyle can't inherit it. However, the trope does apply to [[spoiler: Judas]], though to be fair he has been [[spoiler: dead for several years]]. Subverted since he does still have [[spoiler: Chaltier]].

** This trope is largely in effect in regards to the PC's companions, however. For instance, Anders, who may have been a level 35 god of magic in ''Awakening'', returns in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' as a single-digit level slum doctor. Varric, who fought alongside Hawke the many Battles of Kirkwall in ''[=DA2=]'', in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'' at level 1. Cassandra, who soloed high dragons in ''Anime/DawnOfTheSeeker'', also starts off at level 1 in ''Inquisition'' with no explanation (although she later implies that "soloing high dragons" was an [[ShroudedInMyth in-universe exaggeration of what really occurred]]). The only cases where this is explicitly justified is [[spoiler:Solas, a.k.a. the Dread Wolf Fen'Harel, who lost almost all of his power during his millenia-long slumber and has to start over as a lowly hedge mage]].

* When importing your Warden from the main ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins'' to the ''[[VideoGame/DragonAgeOriginsAwakening Awakening]]'' ExpansionPack or a {{DLC}} campaign, you will lose all items not currently equipped on the Warden and not in the common inventory. That includes all the uber-gear your Companions wore for the FinalBattle and the contents of your personal storage on Soldier's Peak. You also lose all items from other DLC (except ''Return to Ostagar''), particularly the InfinityPlusOneSword Starfang, even if they ''are'' eqipped on your PlayerCharacter, but this is more of a bug than intentional application of this trope. Later NumberedSequels avert this by starring brand new {{Player Character}}s. Not that the replacements you get if the game takes away DLC gear are high-level Grey Warden officer's items that are very powerful indeed, so unless your equipped gear was something absolutely insane like [[InfinityPlusOneSword Starfang]] and the [[GameBreaker Bulwark of the True King]], you won't be losing much. It's played straight with Anders and Varric, who join the player's party in multiple installments.

* The ''VideoGame/LittleBigAdventure'' PC games (''Twinsen's Adventure'' and ''Twinsen's Odyssey'') do this. You eventually get all four available levels of magic (via certain items) and a cool sword in the first game... and then, in the sequel, not only the sword is gone (along with some other stuff), but when you retrieve your magical tunic at the start of the game, you only get the first level of magic and you need new items to get powered up again. This looks kinda odd, because the character still has one of the items that acted as magic power-ups in the first game... yeah.

* By the time you decide to stop playing ''[[VideoGame/{{X}} X2: The Threat]]'' you likely have hundreds of millions of credits, a sizable trade empire, and dozens if not hundreds of warships and fighters. Then ''X3: Reunion'', starring the same PlayerCharacter only a year later, rolls around and you're back to a crappy ship and only a few thousand credits. Fansite owner [=ApricotSlice=] has a few choice words on the subject [[http://apricotmappingservice.com/unbalanced.html here]]. Averted for the next three games, the first two of which have {{Featureless Protagonist}}s, while the [[VideoGame/XRebirth third]] takes place [[TimeSkip several hundred years later]].

* Happens in ''{{VideoGame/Metroid}}'' games, often with some justification such as Samus' equipment becoming infected or damaged. ''VideoGame/MetroidOtherM'' goes with a different justification than the other games: Samus still has all the upgrades and weapons, [[HonorBeforeReason but chooses to not to use them without permission from Adam]].
** Justified in the first two ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' games, where an explosion disables her equipment and the Ing steal them, respectively. It's subverted in ''Metroid Fusion'' as well, where both Samus and the Power Suit's organic components are infected by an alien organism and the suit must be surgically removed. All of Samus's weapons and abilities stay in the suit, but the parasite within it mutates into the main villain. ''Metroid Prime 3: Corruption'' has Samus retain a few of the past game's items, such as Bombs and the Double Jump, but many of the upgrades are still gone with nary a word about them.
** The fanfiction FanFic/{{Repairs}} has Samus play Bag of Spilling straight...then subverts it. She can still use her abilities, albeit in a more limited fashion, and using them before they're ready again makes their repairs take longer.

** For ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask Majora's Mask]]'', this wasn't just limited to between games: Whenever the time traveling hero hits his ResetButton, most, but not all, of his gear and supplies would literally spill out from his pockets into the endless void as he flew back in time (even better, the only way of accumulating money was through a stamp made of special ink imprinted on your skin by a bank teller, recording the balance of your supposed account. Whenever you travel back in time, it's implied that you fool the bank into believing you currently have an account with this balance). Link also somehow loses access to the Ocarina songs he learned in ''Ocarina of Time'', even the ones that are also used in ''Majora's Mask''. He "remembers" the Song of Time (through a flashback that doesn't match up with how he learned it in the first game) but has to be retaught Epona's Song and the Song of Storms by other characters.

** Lampshaded/justified/something in ''The Faces of Evil'' for CD-i. When Link is informed that "it is written" that only he can defeat Ganon, he declares, "Great! I'll grab my stuff!" only to hear Gwonam reply, "There is no time; your sword is enough."
** It even happens In-Game in the Gameboy Color game, Oracle of Ages. You've gotten a handful of useful stuff (a few dungeons in), when your rafting trip goes horribly awry, and lightning strikes you. You wake up on the island you were trying to get to anyway, surrounded by lizard men. Who carry off your stuff. You have ''nothing'' until you find the lizards who stole it and force them to give it back, including a handful of "trading" sequences involving planting a seedling in the past so you can get the seeds from it in the present to take those seeds back to the past to get your damn power bracelet back. This is especially apparent in the sidequests involving switching back and forth between the two Oracle games. Presumably, in-universe, Link is actually physically traveling between the two countries, but that doesn't explain why he becomes much more powerful and better-equipped when he goes back to the previous land and then leaves all his Heart Containers and items behind when he returns.

** Straightly used in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaLinksAwakening''. At the start of the game, Link loses all his stuff when he suffers a shipwreck at the beginning of the game. Of course, [[spoiler: the game turned out to be set in the Wind Fish's dream, so that's another good explanation]].
* Averted in the ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'' series. Abilities gained by both Kain in the ''Blood Omen'' games and Raziel in the ''Soul Reaver'' games are retained from one game to the next. There are a few exceptions; for example, Kain doesn't use his Wolf form after ''Blood Omen 1'' and Raziel doesn't use his Constrict power after ''Soul Reaver 1'', but those powers were of limited use anyway. Still played straight when it comes to the reaver forges - poor Raziel has to imbue the wraith blade twice with every last element between ''Soul Reaver 2'' and ''Defiance''. Particularly glaring because it is a vital element of the plot. A deleted scene (according to interviews) would have had the [[BigBad Elder God]] destroying the Elemental Fonts used to switch the sword elements in ''Soul Reaver 2'' - forcing Raziel to re-imbue the sword.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity''. Once Bruce Wayne manages to gear up as Batman, he starts with most of the gadgets he acquired in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum''. The only major piece of equipment he doesn't carry over (the Line Launcher) is given to him roughly halfway through the game. It's even [[LampshadeHanging Lampshaded]] by Alfred when Batman calls in the Line Launcher. He asks Batman if he's ever considered taking up a bigger UtilityBelt. Batman's response? Tried it, too heavy, weighted him down (no doubt a reference to the No Man's Land comic run where, as he was out in costume roughly 20 hours a day, he built a larger belt to handle a larger variety of crime fighting gear).
* ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamOrigins'', which chronologically takes place first, then retroactively makes the first two games into a case of this, by introducing new items that weren't in the first two games. When asked about what happened to these new items, the creators simply [[HandWave responded by saying he just chose not to bring them with him.]] In the ''Cold Cold Heart'' DLC, set one week after ''Origins'', Alfred tells Batman that the glue grenade formula was unstable apparently justifying not being able to use them any more.

* Played straight through the ''SpaceQuest'' series - Roger Wilco doesn't retain equipment from one game to the next. With the exception of the Orium crystal from II, which Roger starts with in III. Also, the ''effects'' of another item carry over from II to III: acquiring the free-but-not-really Labion Terror Beast Mating Whistle in II leads to the Arnoid hunting Roger during III. This happens even if you ''didn't'' get the whistle, since it is optional. However, the sixth game shows that he does keep some of the items from all his adventures: they are all on the table in his quarters aboard the ''[=DeepShip 86=]''.

* Averted in ''[[VideoGame/DissidiaFinalFantasy Dissidia 012 [duodecim] Final Fantasy]]'', through an OldSaveBonus [[note]] despite the introduction of this very article says that "If the game actually acknowledges personal data from a previous title in the series, it's an OldSaveBonus", this time it's different - as the OldSaveBonus makes you keep ''much'' more than a handful of weapons as it usually happens[[/note]] for the first ''Dissidia'', as ''entire levels'' can be transferred to the sequel if you have the old save file, thus averting the need to [[LevelGrinding grind all those levels]] and therefore actually playing out like an example of NewGamePlus [[note]] or as an example of MissionPackSequel if you're ''that'' whiny, take your pick...[[/note]]. Ththe trope can be played straight as the player has the option to import everything but their levels so they can keep their unlockables and get their bounus items, but still have the option to level old characters up.

** [[VideoGame/Left4Dead2 The sequel]], which actually has a canonical chronological sequence to its campaigns, lampshades this in ''Hard Rain'' when the protagonists realize that they've left their weapons and the flares needed to signal their boat in a bag that they forgot to grab from said boat. The other campaigns play the trope straight, but there are some unsaid explanations. In The Passing/Dark Carnival, they arrive in a tight, cramped stock car that likely could barely hold 4 people, much less guns. Swamp Fever starts with a helicopter crash. Virgil likely wanted some payment for his services rendered and/or the Survivors were willing to give him their guns to show their gratitude, which would explain why they have nothing at the start of The Parish. Then there is The Sacrifice, wherein the old survivors arrive in a train and still don't carry anything but pistols - though we know from the tie-in comic that the US military confiscated the stronger guns.
** The tie-in comic for The Sacrifice explained how in the original game the Survivors lost their weapons between some of the campaigns: The Slaters stole their weapons and booted them off the boat in the aftermath of Death Toll, the airplane crashed after Dead Air, and the military that rescued them confiscated their weapons for security reasons. It's unknown why they lost their weapons after Crash Course though, as their armored truck had more than enough room to carry it and it was merely blocked by dead traffic (and a literal broken bridge).

** Like ''Halo'', ''Crysis'' only lets you carry a small selection of weapons at a time. Plus, at least it was justified - and if you run around before beating the stuffing out of the guy who caught you, you can rearm yourself somewhat, and the second time you did have to stop and go in for a diagnostic check... it's not like they were ''expecting'' a [[spoiler:giant alien squid battleship thing to pop up and blast them with a freeze-ray]], eh?

-->'''Durandal''': I know you have a lot of questions. [...] And most importantly, where's your rocket launcher and the fusion gun?
* Often in the ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' series, where unless the level is specifically designed to remember what you beat the previous one with (usually only for levels that take place immediately after the previous one, and even then not always), your character often manages to somehow completely misplace the useful enemy equipment he picked up in the last level and re-acquire the gun he came in with and dropped for something else five minutes in. The Chernobyl missions in the first ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' are probably the oddest: the sniper rifle you start with in the first one survives the transition to the second, minus its suppressor and ghillie camouflage, but the silenced USP you also start with and anything else you can pick up in the level turn into an AK-47 during the transition - ''except'' for an actual AK-47, which instead turns into a USP for some reason.

* Averted for the most part in ''LostWinds''. At the beginning of the second game, Toku keeps all of his learned abilities; however, he loses his cape after tearing it off on a tree branch. He gets it back later, though.

* ''DrillDozer'' is about a girl in a mech with a drill on it. In each level, the player can acquire gears, which allow the drill to spin faster and harder. At the end of every level, the drill conveniently breaks down in such as fashion as to lose the two gears, leaving them with the default first. It's blamed on "wear and tear." [[spoiler:At the end of the game, ''all'' the gears get broken.]]

* The ''VideoGame/TyTheTasmanianTiger'' series is a particularly strange offender; you obtain various [[ImprobableWeaponUser boomerang sets]] with various ElementalPowers, and you always, ''always'' lose them between games - except for the Aquarangs, which only work underwater. They do, however, change ''appearance'', from rather distinctive finned boomerangs to... the exact same model as your starting boomerang.
* The Chaos Emeralds in the ''SonicTheHedgehog'' series. Justified by the good ending of the game.
** ''Sonic 3'' picks up directly after ''Sonic 2'' (with the canonical ending being that you got all the Chaos Emeralds in Sonic 2). Hence, Sonic uses them in the opening cinematic to turn into Super Sonic, before Knuckles jumps up and startles him, losing the emeralds. Knuckles then picks them up. Granted, this doesn't explain how they end up randomly scattered throughout the levels.
** Averted between ''Sonic 3'' and ''SonicAndKnuckles'' courtesy the lock-on cartridge of the latter. If you continue from a ''Sonic 3'' save file, you retain any and all emeralds that you've collected in that game.
** Also averted in ''SonicUnleashed'', in which Sonic holds onto the Chaos Emeralds through the entire game.

** Between ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure'' and ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'', Sonic lost his Light Speed Shoes, and Light Speed Attack. Knuckles lost his Shovel Claws. All of them are replaced in the second game - However, there are also the missing Crystal Ring (Sonic), Jet Anklet, Rhythm Badge (Tails), and Fighting Gloves (Knuckles). Tails' lost items are slightly justified, due to the UnexpectedGameplayChange, but...

* By Film/TransformersDarkOfTheMoon, Optimus Prime is a WalkingArmory, with a large trailer's worth of weaponry at his disposal. After the TimeSkip between that film and [[Film/TransformersAgeOfExtinction Age of Extinction]], he's lost every single weapon he had, save a shotgun he took from Megatron.

* ''VideoGame/BattlefieldBadCompany''. It's probably a conscious design decision, to try and avoid TooAwesomeToUse.
** ''Bad Company 2'' also avoids this by virtue of the weapon crates scattered about in the campaign - even in the odd case where you lose what guns you had been using beforehand, you can typically find one of the crates and grab whatever you want from it.

* The intro cinematic of ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' ends right at the opening to the first level, "No Mercy." But the characters are shown using weapons that they won't actually find until later. During the cinematic, every character either runs out of ammo or has the gun knocked out of their hands, leaving them with only the starting pistol.