History Main / BreatherLevel

*** After Road to Nowhere, the next level is Boulder Dash, which, despite CameraScrew by virtue of being chased by giant boulder, is pretty easy due to having sufficient number of checkpoints and straightforward jumps (again, it's rather Guitar Hero-like). This is followed by an infamous MarathonLevel, Sunset Vista, which is the first spot you can get a Key from the Cortex Tokens, but only towards the end of the level.

** Swing Bridges in ''Super Monkey Ball 2'' is the second stage in the Master set, the very last part of a very hard game. It is also by far the easiest stage in Master, with plenty of room for error and some pretty large, slow-moving platforms, though you can still lose a few lives if you're careless. Striker, from Master Extra, could also count, since unlike any of the other Master Extra stages, you are asked to do only one thing, and again, you have a bunch of room for error--the difficulty lies more in the [[CameraScrew camera unintentionally obstructing your line of sight]] than the stage itself.

** Chapter 29x/31x in ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade Fire Emblem 7]]'' came directly after a huge castle defense map, and was basically a shopping trip for which you were given 30,000 gold. Granted, it was optional and had a five-turn time limit.
** ''VideoGame/FireEmblemShadowDragonAndTheBladeOfLight''[='=]s Gaiden chapters are all this; since they can only be accessed if you have lost either most of your units (6x, 12x, 17x, 20x) or the tools you need to beat the final boss (24x), it is likely that this was intentional on the developer's part. You always get an above-average unit to join you, and in the hard difficulties all of the enemies have weapons that are a grade weaker than what the enemies are currently using.

** The BonusRound, known as the Winner's Circle, features a board with six subjects on it. Each subject is revealed individually, and whoever is giving the clues has sixty seconds to convey each subject by giving a list of things that fit it. Giving an illegal clue (part of the subject or a direct synonym; a description of the subject instead of an item that fits it; or an item that does not fit at all) invalidates the category immediately. For example, if the box is "Things That Are Red", the person giving the clue may say things like "a rose", "a fire engine", or even "[[Literature/CliffordTheBigRedDog Clifford]]" or "Cabernet Sauvignon", whereas "Clifford the Big ''Red'' Dog", "Crimson", or "This is the color of a rose" would be illegal. Breather Levels come into play on the second category, which often takes the form "Why You ____" or "What ____ Might Say", where a more verbose clue may be given without invalidating the rules of the game. (For example, a box reading "What Creator/BettyWhite Might Say" could be conveyed with nearly any sentence that accurately describes her, such as "I played Rose on ''Series/TheGoldenGirls''" or "I am a famous actress and comedian who is in her 90s".)

** "Two-Week Test" in ''Advance Wars 2'', a HoldTheLine style mission where you must protect your HQ from a vastly superior force for 14 turns as Colin, seems threatening at first but is much easier than the missions preceding and following it owing to your HQ being on a peninsula with a 2 square-wide chokepoint that connects it to the mainland. Plop some tanks on it, put some indirects behind it, and clog the rest of that penninsula with infantry, and your opponent will ''never'' break through since Colin's cheaper units allow him to easily make up for the losses while chipping away at the enemy's stronger units. It's basically ''impossible to lose'' if you don't attempt move forward. All of this is also ignoring an amazing CheeseStrategy where, if you don't build any units, your enemy will move their tanks in and park them all over your properties which ''[[NiceJobFixingItVillain prevents their own infantry from winning by capture]]'' and basically solves your problem for you while you [[WinsByDoingAbsolutelyNothing Win By Doing Absolutely Nothing]].
** Also in ''Advance Wars 2'', the penultimate campaign level Hot Pursuit is typically regarded as a breather level between Great Sea Battle (where TheDragon is confronted) and Final Front (the final showdown with the BigBad). 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).
** ''Dual Strike'' has Muck Amok, a one-screen wide-open map with no obstacles and nothing to battle but [[OminousObsidianOoze Oozium 238]] and a single missile unit guarding the enemy HQ. You'd have to be really careless to get overwhelmed since Oozium are so limited in mobility and such a predictable threat, making the level a ''very'' nice reprieve from the much more difficult Omens And Signs and Into The Woods that came before, and the downright savage Healing Touch and Crystal Calamity that come after. Adding to that is the mission offers comms towers and almost all vehicle-type units giving you a ''massive'' advantage if you team up Jess with Javier, you're facing Koal on his own whose abilities aren't usable on this map[[note]]He gets a firepower bonus on roads and his CO power boosts his movement range: the map has no roads and Oozium don't get movement bonuses from CO powers[[/note]], and you'll get a cool 680 points for wiping out all the Oozium units (equal to the reward you get for two S-ranked missions), making this mission worth 1000 points total if you S-rank it.
** ''Days of Ruin'' has Salvation, the 19th mission. After several rather difficult battles rife with InterfaceScrew and one ''hell'' of a PlayerPunch, you suddenly get a mission where you face a ragtag group of fanatics. They have only foot soldiers and two tanks, both suffering damage at the start of the level, a war tank with low fuel and no ammo, and no [=CO=], while you have missile silos to tear them apart.
** ''Days of Ruin'' also has Crash Landing, a straight forward battle that is opened and closed by the {{Unusual Euphemism}}s and antics (such as being the only one to care about the [[MagicCountdown altimeter]]) of an unnamed IDS agent. In Dark Conflict, the battle is still easy, but without the dialog.

* Stage 6 of most ''Franchise/TouhouProject'' games. Generally short, low danger, and [[SuspiciousVideogameGenerosity filled with resources]]. Which is good, since it's right before the FinalBoss (and, with the conditions met, the BrutalBonusLevel housing the BonusBoss).

* In ''VideoGame/{{Drakensang}}'' after some pretty hard times of stealth and hard fights in the castle ruins in the Blood Mountains and the siege of Grimtooth castle, Tallon feels like this. [[spoiler: Except for the hidden Linnworm BonusBoss and the [[ClimaxBoss Dragon Jafgur]] near the end.]]

!!Light Novels
* ''LightNovel/IsItWrongToTryToPickUpGirlsInADungeon'': Level 18 of the eponymous Dungeon is an InUniverse example, as monsters don't spawn there.

* It's a staple of the ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'' series to include at least one level in each game consisting mostly or entirely of [[EverythingsBetterWithPenguins Prinnys]], who may or may not be arranged in a fashion that allows you to [[MadeOfExplodium detonate every single one of them in a single throw]]. It's baseball in [[VideoGame/DisgaeaHourOfDarkness the first game]], and bowling in [[VideoGame/Disgaea2CursedMemories the second]]. There will also be at least a couple of levels with easy enemies sanding around on XP/Mana/Money boosting [[GeoEffects Geo-Panels]] for no other reason then to provide you with an easy LevelGrinding spot, often before a DifficultySpike.

* In ''TabletopGame/BlissStage'', after flying a mission, the player characters are granted Interlude Actions, giving the players a chance to heal and roleplay. This is the main mechanism by which the characters LevelUpAtIntimacy5.
* In the {{RPG Mechanics|Verse}} LightNovel ''LightNovel/IsItWrongToTryToPickUpGirlsInADungeon'', Level 18 of the eponymous Dungeon is an InUniverse example. To be exact, monsters don't spawn there.
* There are a few staple modes in {{pinball}} that are significantly easier on the player than others:
** Multiball modes are seen as a safety net because not only are the extra balls insurance against a loss if you've drained one or more, as multiball modes keep going until you drain every ball except one, but standard multiball modes also begin with a ball saver, a mechanic that provides you with another ball immediately after you lose one. In other words, for the first few moments in a multiball, ''you cannot lose''. Since most modern machines let you play two or more modes simultaneously, these attributes actually help make other modes easier too, and a staple of playing competitively involves taking a risky and/or difficult mode and combining it with multiball to make it safer.
** Pinball machines made by Creator/{{SEGA}} will usually have one mode called "Extra Ball," which is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin. It's not so much a goal to complete as much as an extra ball will be activated somewhere at a fixed location on the playfield, and getting the ball there awards you with one more to play with. It's the video game equivalent of a stage in which you search for an extra life and that's it. Getting this extra ball also counts toward reaching the WizardMode.

** In the original ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'', 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 and Stalfos, 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. The fact that Level 8 contains the Magic Key (which ''greatly'' increases one's ability to progress swiftly through dungeons) adds to the incentive to do this. In fact, the only levels one has to have visited to get the Magic Key in this quest are Levels 2 and 6 (although doing the levels this way will make it impossible to complete level 6 at this point, which makes that route sub-optimal for {{speedrunning}}).

** The Residence in ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil1'' and its Remake is quite a bit easier than the actual mansion. It's a smaller and much more straightforward to navigate area with many rooms only being visited once, making it easy to figure out which rooms you should rout enemies and which ones you should just dodge. On top of that, most of the enemies are giant spiders (which are very easy to run past) and giant bees (which are very easy to run from), and the two bosses are both dispatched by solving puzzles rather than combat (though fighting Plant 42 head-on is an option). This was likely done intentionally by the developers not only so you could can focus on the several major plot points that are revealed here, but also to give you a reprieve before returning to the mansion and finding out it's been infested with [[DemonicSpider Hunters]].

** ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'' has the Sea Palace, which is filled with surprisingly few high-level enemy 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 [[ShieldBearingMook Iron Knuckles]] in the previous dungeons.

* ''VideoGame/TombRaider'':
** After several levels of dealing with gorillas and lions, being pestered by that bastard [[BossInMookClothing Pierre]], worming your way through the tricky Tomb of Tihocan, and facing off with a pair of monstrous Centaurs, you travel to Egypt and are met with the City of Khamoon and the Obelesk of Khamoon. These two levels are ''much'' easier than the last few levels, having no recurring BossInMookClothing to deal with, less enemies, no tricky platforming, and being mostly puzzle-based. The enemies are a ''massive'' step up with you dealing with Black Panthers and [[DemonicSpiders Mummies]], both of whom will charge at you like a bat out of Hell and completely wreck your day, but you're also able to engage every single enemy ''save for one in each level'' from a safe height where they can't touch you. The ones that need to be engaged directly both appear right before a save crystal as well letting you SaveScum until you beat it, and the second one can be glitched into not "activating" by entering the room from the wrong end. Even the secrets are very easy to find and reach, all of which are in plain sight and require nothing more than a straight jump to get to. It's a very nice reprieve before heading to the Sanctuary of the Scion and discovering the enemies are Flying Mutants and Atlanean Mutants, the former of which are Mummies that can fly and the latter are Mummies that shoot stuff at you. [[NintendoHard Have fun!]]
** After the Sanctuary of the Scion you get stripped of your weapons and have to explore Natla's Mines. There are no enemies whatsoever outside of three {{Mini Boss}}es, no puzzle-solving save for a block puzzle that you'll solve by accident long before it gets frustrating, no traps save for a few rolling boulders you'll see coming a mile away, all the key items needed to progress are laying in plain sight, and you spend most of the time moving boxes and finding switches to open passages. Though the bosses can be a little tricky, ''especially'' the Skater Boy as he's very fast and is armed with a pair of uzis, they don't go down with much more trouble than it took to take out Pierre and the Skater Boy can be cheesed by a patient player who finds the secret in his boss room (look for water). Enjoy it while it lasts because from here you go to [[TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon Atlantis]]: hope you like fighting crowds of [[DemonicSpiders Atlantean Mutants]] and some really tricky platforming!

** Like in the last game, the NoGearLevel where Lara is stripped of her weapons and locked on an Oil Rig is ''much'' easier than the previous levels. Unlike the last few levels which had brutally difficult enemies attacking in groups and some very tricky platforming, this one is primarily puzzle-based with Lara needing to find key cards to advance. Nearly all the enemies are the pipe-wielding henchmen and most of the environments are either wide and uncluttered or allow you to engage enemies from out-of-reach vantage points, enemies are ''extremely'' generous with medkits and ammo, all of the secrets are very easy to find and "hidden" in plain sight, and your reward for finding all three is your uzis and a buttload of ammo for them.

** The outdoor levels of ''[[VideoGame/UnrealI Unreal]]'' sit between more conventional levels rife with platforming, combat, or both. Besides being a canvas for SceneryPorn and VisualEffectsOfAwesome, they allow the player to recover health, ammunition and items, as well as simply breathe and relax, [[SuspiciouslyAproposMusic helped by the soothing atmospheric music]] in these levels.

* This is the function of the outdoor levels of ''[[VideoGame/UnrealI Unreal]]''[[note]][=NyLeve's=] Falls, Harobed Village, Noork's Elbow, The Trench, Spire Village, Velora Pass and Serpent Canyon[[/note]].

* The repurposed [[VideoGame/{{Earthbound}} Onett map]] in ''VideoGame/TheHalloweenHack'' has nothing except disturbing but harmless enemies that drop great healing items. The boss, on the other hand...

** In ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga]]'', most of the cave areas have no enemies. Also, Little Fungitown, a village accessible only by elevator, has no overworld enemies or other hazards, until Mario eats an Invincishroom [[spoiler:and contracts Bean Fever.]]

** Dungeon Man in ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' is the most easygoing area in the second half of the game, especially coming after the cramped Pyramid. Though the enemies aren't exactly the easiest types (several of them posing quite serious threats when first pitted against a considerably weaker party in the [[ThatOneLevel Fourside Department Store]]), at least the encounter rate here is low, and there are free {{Healing Checkpoint}}s.
** ''VideoGame/{{Mother 3}}'': Following a decidedly irritating dungeon and boss in chapter 5, chapter 6 is just one long SugarWiki/{{Heartwarming Moment|s}} for which all you need to do is hold left. Then comes chapter 7, the longest in the game.

* The second episode of ''Videogame/{{Blood}}'' is a lot easier than the first one. It has a larger variety of weapons, including [[InfinityMinusOneSword the Voodoo Doll]], and its final boss, Shial, is just a big spider that [[MookMaker can only spawn lesser ones and cannot attack on her own]], and is nothing comparing to the first episode's Cheogh the Stone Gargoyle, which does heavy damage and is unbelievably hard to kill with the first six weapons. Sure, there are Stone Gargoyles in episode 2, but the Voodoo Doll chews them up and spits them out. In turn, the episode has a breather level, namely Level 5 (The Haunting), which is long but quite easy; unlike the level before, it doesn't feature [[DemonicSpiders any kind of Cultist]] or (in the case of the secret level) [[BossInMookClothing Stone Gargoyles]].

* ''[[VideoGame/{{Doom}} DOOM II]]'':

* Similarly, in ''VideoGame/TimeSplittersFuturePerfect'', the mission ''You Take the High Road'' takes place after [[ThatOneLevel Something to Crow About]], which involved tough robots, ''two'' bosses (and the one at the end is [[ThatOneBoss especially nasty]]), [[DemonicSpiders Rolling Robots]], and many high stakes obstacles. The former involves the same {{Mooks}} from ''Scotland The Brave'' plus more, so the threat is much more sedated.

** The second island in [[Videogame/CrashBandicoot1996 the original game]] seems to alternate Breather Levels with [[ThatOneLevel That One Levels]]:

* ''Videogame/IndianaJonesGreatestAdventures'' has the maze at Pankot Palace in the "Temple of Doom" portion, with its slow pace, relative lack of tough enemies and abundance of easy-to-get power ups and extra lives. And considering it's followed by some of the hardest levels in the game, you'll need all the lives you can get.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'', after navigating the quite arduous trek to escape the underground condemned old testing areas you are faced with Wheatley's tests. Wheatley, being the [[TooDumbToLive absolute moron he is]], can only manage to make either laughably easy tests or swipe some of [=GLaDOS's=] leftover tests and cobble them together. Unsurprisingly they're none-too-difficult and serve to let you have a break and some laughs at Wheatley's expense [[spoiler:until ''The Part Where He Kills You'' where the difficulty picks back up and remains steady until the FinalBoss]].

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'' plays this for laughs: near the end [[spoiler:Wheatley, having replaced [=GLaDOS=],]] starts putting you through test chambers again. The first one requires you to push a button to win, and that's it.

* The mission "Devil" in ''Videogame/TraumaCenter''; 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. There's also the "nanomachine" puzzles. You're given a few hexagon-made shapes and have to fit them all into a certain area. You get this twice. Even before that, you have the "master the Healing Touch" level.

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'':

** ''Radiant Dawn'' has 4-5, the most XP rich chapter in the entire series, right before the "endgame" levels.

** ''[[VideoGame/FireEmblemAkaneia Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon]]''[='=]s Gaiden chapters are all this; since they can only be accessed if you have lost either most of your units (6x, 12x, 17x, 20x) or the tools you need to beat the final boss (24x), it is likely that this was intentional on the developer's part. You always get an above-average unit to join you, and in the hard difficulties all of the enemies have weapons that are a grade weaker than what the enemies are currently using.

* In ''VideoGame/MaxPayne 2'', you have a tourist attraction; Chapter 6 'A Linear Sequence of Scares' was just a stroll through a funhouse ending in a shower scene with The Dame. Oh, and a batch of goodies. It's mainly there to serve as character development, and actually stands out as one of the most memorable levels in the game. It also serves as an opportunity for the player to familiarize themselves with the layout of the map, as he or she will have to return to the location twice - once while fighting enemies, and once while the building is on fire. As the funhouse has the most complex and disorienting level design in the game, this level serves as a dry run before the player has to overcome challenges inside it. All of the dream sequences in the game also function as breather levels, in contrast to the two dream sequences in the original game, which were ThatOneLevel.

* ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'' has one quest that is incredibly simple. You just have to follow [[spoiler:Dad]]'s orders, which mainly consist of "go here and press button". Just before this was [[spoiler:Vault 112]] which was simple but annoying to complete. And straight after this quest [[spoiler:the Enclave attack.]]

* ''Film/EscapeRoom2019'': The second room lacks any immediate danger that we get to see in the brief time it takes the protagonists to solve it, being protected by two very simple lock puzzles. The first part is a cozy cabin with no observable time limit, although the second part is a frozen landscape where the real danger is catching hypothermia if they stay ''too'' long.

** The second island in ''[[Videogame/CrashBandicoot1996 the original game]]'' seems to alternate Breather Levels with [[ThatOneLevel That One Levels]]:
*** Up The Creek, the first level on second island, follows Native Fortress, the first [[DifficultySpike truly hard]] [[MarathonLevel and long]] level in the game. It is followed by the showdown with the Ripper Roo who is likely the second hardest boss in the game, and the following level is difficult The Lost City. By conparison, Up The Creek is pretty straighforward without any complicated jumps and is pretty short.
*** The Lost City is followed by The Temple, which, unlike The Lost City has easy and predictable enemies and hazards, is relatively short and has reasonable distance between checkpoints. The only thing preventing you from getting a clear gem right away is [[GuideDangIt an invisible path to some boxes]]. The next level is The Road to Nowhere, which is basically one giant [[BottomlessPits Bottomless Pit]] with things like invincible boars and GoombaSpringboard being ''necessary'' to advance.
*** After Road to Nowhere, the next level is Boulder Dash, which, despite CameraScrew by virtue of being chased by giant boulder, is pretty easy due to having sufficient number of checkpoints and straightforward jumps. This is followed by an infamous MarathonLevel, Sunset Vista.

*** Of the final 5 stages before the final boss only Piston It Away and Spaced Out will give you ''any'' trouble, and even then only because they're a new type of stage where it's easy to die until you figure out their unique enemies and hazards. Rock It and Pack Attack exist only to teach you the jet pack, and though it's a bit dodgy at first the levels can easily be steamrolled, Box Gem and all, with minimal effort, and Night Fight is a ''very'' easy level where the [[BlackOutBasement darkness mechanic]] isn't nearly enough to stop you from easily running through the whole thing and getting the Box Gem on your first try. Presumably this is to give you a bit of a break before going back and attempting to get some of the more difficult hidden gems like the Yellow Gem in Plant Food or the Secret Gem in Ruination.

*** The first two levels of The 11th Dimension come right after Run it Bayou, which is a jetboard level mixed with some tough platforming and a very difficult Hidden Gem, and the DifficultySpike of Tranquillity Falls. "Snow Way Out" is mainly an introduction to Kapuna-Wa and is one of the levels featured the game's demo, while "Stay Frosty" is a short and relatively simple level, with only the grind rail segment and a few mid-air boxes afterwards being tricky. After them, comes Bears Repeating, which has a ''brutal'' section where the player is forced to ride on Polar, who is hard to control and has a wonky hit box.

*** While the Sn@xx Dimension's levels are still appropriately difficult for their placement in the game, their N. Verted versions fall into this trope, as the addition of underwater physics actually makes their trickier platforming segments (especially the end of "The Crate Escape") ''easier''.

-->-- '''Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto''', ''[[http://us.wii.com/iwata_asks/nsmb/vol1_page9.jsp Iwata Asks: New Super Mario Bros. Wii - The Correct Way to Enjoy An Action Game]]''