The examples are all over the place.

Is it a Bag of Spilling? Just anything that reduces your level to 1?

Since an alternate name is "getting Metroided", Metroid, of course, gets no explanation whatsoever.

edited 22nd Jul '11 5:35:41 PM by billybobfred

It certainly sounds like Bag of Spilling.

I went in expecting "a character known for being extremely tough, but starting at level one despite his years of fighting." Instead it's... Bag of Spilling. "Metroided" should be a redirect for that, not this.

Seems to me that the problem may be with Bag of Spilling, as a name. I would never have guessed that it meant "start the sequel game at a lower level than you ended the first game, even if you're playing the same character."

The only other thing that came to mind was New Game Plus.

This is Bag of Spilling, exactly. Though if the name "Bag of Spilling" is a concern we might go for something like New Adventure Power Loss

Meant to be the explanation for it (you're injured/have amnesia/you got cursed) and primarily for it applied to original games over sequels, has decayed. No idea when or who did the alt title.

edited 22nd Jul '11 10:14:36 PM by deuxhero

looks to me that this is meant to be Bag of Spilling within the same game/playthrough

bob is a lvl50 badasses then went head to head with Big Bad and lost as a result of the loss he lost all equips and experience and doesn't have a quick way to regain it all

Taste Of Power will be common setup

edited 23rd Jul '11 5:46:55 AM by ratchetfreak

I agree that this trope seems to pretty much be Bag of Spilling. I think that becomes clearer when you look at the redirect Metroided and compare it to the actual Metroid examples on the Bag of Spilling page.

That being said, Restart at Level One makes more intuitive sense to me as a title than Bag of Spilling does for the same concept. That might just be me though.

After looking at some examples, I think rachetfreak is right about how this trope has been used though.

edited 23rd Jul '11 10:25:50 AM by LouieW

Eh, I think which one is clearer really depends on the game. For games like Zelda where all you have are items that you lose, Bag of Spilling is clearer. For games where all you have are levels, Restart at Level One is clearer. This is why we have redirects.

Restart at Level One is awkward for games that don't have levels and it can be confused with being sent back to the first level of a game rather than just a level one character.

edited 23rd Jul '11 10:26:00 AM by shimaspawn

Ok, so... Bag of Spilling is Your character is level 99 at the end of the first game, but level 1 at the start of the 2nd, and usually with only the very basic equipment in order to make you work through everything once again.

Restart at Level One is where your character is already known for being powerful at the start of the game, but is subjected to some event that strips you of that power and forces you to start over again.

Bag of Spilling example: In Mega Man Legends 2, Roll explains to Volnutt that she had to sell off all his weapons from the first game just to afford repairs to the ship.

Restart at Level One example: Haseo from Dot Hack GU is a level 133 Adept Rogue and quite famous for being a Player-Killer Killer in the game. After being Data Drained by Tri-Edge, he is forced back to level 1 and has to start over.

It seems to me that the difference between these tropes is that one requires a previous title in the series for it to apply.

Thing is, most anyone familiar with video games would be familiar with the idea of "Level One". I guess someone utterly and totally sheltered from the idea of a RPG and its mechanics might think "Restart at Level One" means "Restart the game at the very first stage of the game", but that seems to be stretching it.

Regardless. One trope is "Badass Warrior Brought Down to Normal at the start of the game, " and the other is "Badass Warrior Brought Down to Normal because it's the sequel." And neither page can seem to decide which is which. They seem to be trying to do each other's jobs at the same time. At the same time, it seems to have a touch of The Same But More Specific.

Level One is just as likely in video games to mean the first level of the game as the first character level. In old school games without a save feature, things that kicked you back to the first level to do everything all over again were amazingly common.

Ayup. I'm a long time fan of RPGs, and the first thing I thought when I saw this title involved stages and dungeons floors since that's what level one could also mean.

See also: this comic

Restart With Basic Abilities?

Sounds like once you fail and die, your character starts from scratch instead of respawning.

Restart at Level One seems like just an in-universe invocation or excuse for Bag of Spilling. I clicked on it thinking it was a trope about how characters are built up to be badass in-universe and bam when you get them they are at your level, (which would of been a form of Cut Scene Power To The Max I guess.) Or a form of Warring Without Weapons (wow what a bad title for that....)

edited 23rd Jul '11 6:11:42 PM by Raso

Hmm...is there a trope for when you begin the next game at Level One because the enemies have become so powerful, relative to you, that you are effectively Level One, but with all your previous abilities?

How does this compare to Redemption Demotion, anyway?

It's kind of a supertrope in some ways because this doesn't require villains. You could get a powerful general on this side of good to do this.

Now, see, that would be an effective justification for Restart at Level One. Provided of course you retained the previous game's abilities. But it's not nearly common enough to be a trope.

edited 24th Jul '11 8:38:19 AM by Loyal2NES

bump.

I don't like Restart at Level One for the reason already mentioned, it sounds like it refers to the first stage. When you're talking about levels, it always helps to keep this comic in mind. *

^{You thought it was going to be XKCD before you moused over it, didn't you?}

For the justified version, I almost want to make a reference to the monsters from Space Jam or something. The Great Skill Robbery?

Game Sequel Start Over

Restart at Level One sounds more like restarting the same game from the beginning more than starting another game at level one. Based on the name, I probably would have assumed that this was a New Game Plus related trope.