History Main / PlotLeveling

** The post-Shura arcs' [[AvertedTrope aversion]] of this trope demonstrates exactly why it's necessary. After Kenshiro leaves the Land of Shura, the manga starts using villains who would have been [[MonsterOfTheWeek Punks of the Week]] in the ''first'' series (and in fact, the final villain was retconned into ''having been'' an ordinary GiantMook). While the series tries to [[ChangingOfTheGuard refocus on the younger supporting cast]], such as Ryu and Bat, inevitably Kenshiro is going to get involved in the fight, at which point the villains [[CatchPhrase don't even know that they're already dead]]. Even more than Land of Shura, these arcs are seen as a sign of terminal FranchiseZombie-ism.

* The ''Franchise/BackToTheFuture'' [[TwoPartTrilogy trilogy]]. The final scene with the [=DeLorean=] flying out to rescue Marty's son at the end of the [[Film/BackToTheFuture first movie]] was a joke scene, and wasn't intended to be taken seriously. High box office earnings and strong positive reaction, however, allowed the creators to follow through with more films. Furthermore, Marty's future is better insured by the end of the [[Film/BackToTheFuturePartIII third film]], as well as Doc Brown, who gets a wife, kids ''and [[CoolTrain a hovering time-traveling train]]''.

** Each regional evil team has had their goals inflate over time. After the first two generations gave us Team Rocket, a realistic Mafia-esque band of poachers and criminals, every subsequent team started aiming higher with plans centered around Legendary Pokémon. These plans have included flooding the land/evaporating the sea, rewriting the universe, domination by FantasyGunControl, domination by freezing everything solid, and enacting ''mass genocide'' for all but a wealthy few. Even Team Rocket isn't exempt from this, as their return in ''VideoGame/PokemonUltraSunAndUltraMoon'' has their boss fancy himself an upgrade from TheDon to MultiversalConqueror.

* In ''Manga/{{Dragonball}}'', we go from a military commander who wants to be taller before ruling the world, to an evil demon king who actually succeeds, to the proud and arrogant prince of Goku's extra-terrestrial warrior race that can crush Goku and his friends with little effort, to the ruler of the galaxy that ''commanded'' said prince, to a genetic amalgam created from various good and bad guys including said ruler, and the... what can probably be called the ancient magical abomination Majin Buu, who destroys planets and people with ease for the hell of it. SerialEscalation has made it so the series is widely known for parody-level absurd battle powers and fights, where you could practically sneeze and destroy a planet, but put it back almost as easily. There was a single reversal in ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', however, when it's made clear that said galactic ruler (Frieza) was in fact always capable of being a greater threat than most of his successors, but simply [[BrilliantButLazy never could be bothered to improve himself]]; This is a result of trying to work some sanity back into a franchise riddled with [[PostScriptSeason Post Script Seasons]].

* ''Manga/OnePiece'' comes with Plot Leveling built in. We start in the East Blue, the weakest of the four main seas. Then move up to the Grand Line, which lives up to its hype of being difficult to sail and survive. Finally, the sailors who travel across the Grand Line's second half, the New World, refer to the first half as "Paradise" out of comparison to the New World. However the author throws a curveball once in a while. For example, right after the Alabasta arc, which Luffy took two defeats to just barely win on his third try against Crocodile, was the Jaya arc, the main antogonist was Bellamy. It took Luffy [[CurbStompBattle one punch]] to put him down, without stretching.
* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'' was this until a point where it went out of control, the author decided to remove Ichigo's original GameBreaker powers and gave him new ones which require him to start leveling up again.
** For all of 5 minutes until he got stronger versions of his old powers, letting him beat someone who was apparently as strong as him pre-sacrifice without [[NextTierPowerUp Bankai]] or his [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Hollow Mask]].

* In ''Manga/{{Dragonball}}'', we go from a military commander who wants to be taller before ruling the world, to an evil demon king who actually succeeds, to the proud and arrogant prince of Goku's extra-terrestrial warrior race that can crush Goku and his friends with little effort, to the ruler of the galaxy that ''commanded'' said prince, to a genetic amalgam created from various good and bad guys including said ruler, and the... what can probably be called the ancient magical abomination Majin Buu, who destroys planets and people with ease for the hell of it. SerialEscalation has made it so the series is widely known for parody-level absurd battle powers and fights, where you could practically sneeze and destroy a planet, but put it back almost as easily. There was a single reversal in ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', however, when it's made clear that said galactic ruler ( Frieza) was in fact always capable of being a greater threat than most of his successors, but simply [[BrilliantButLazy never could be bothered to improve himself]] ; This is a result of trying to work some sanity back into a franchise riddled with [[PostScriptSeason Post Script Seasons]].

The plot is completed. The hero gets his due reward, the girl, and vanquishes the villain with a series of really cool moves. Everybody lives happily ever after.

But wait. Turns out that fans liked the story so much that [[UnCanceled they want a sequel]]. But the hero's story is essentially done. He's supposed to be content for the rest of his life with what he got at the end.

The solution: Level up the rewards and dangers the hero faces to add that extra ''oomph'' to the sequel while avoiding accusations of plot recycling. Instead of a mere [[TheDon Mafia boss]], the SortingAlgorithmOfEvil delivers a beady-eyed DiabolicalMastermind to deal with, but the hero can look forward to [[MyKungFuIsStrongerThanYours niftier powers and legacies]].

This trope has a unique relationship with videogames, since RuleOfFun and ExcusePlot often allow more leeway when designing sequels.

'''Lucas:''' Uh wait, we got that one too.\\

* The ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' series of games went to increasingly absurd lengths ([[DeconstructorFleet naturally]]) to justify Solid Snake's continual returns from retirement. ''VideoGame/MetalGear2'' involved a replacement for petroleum and theft of nearly every nuclear weapon in the world. ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' involved genetically engineered super soldiers, a clone brother who took the CainAndAbel trope too much to heart, and ''invisible'' nukes. ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'' involved mass-produced Metal Gears, an anti-Metal Gear, a third clone brother, a kidnapped president, a Metal Gear ''fortress'', and [[GainaxEnding whatever the hell happened at the end]].'' VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' had to work hard to top that, but it did. ''[[Awesome/MetalGear And it was awesome]]''.
** To give some perspective, ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3'', a prequel to the rest of the series, revolved around... destroying a 1st generation superweapon and assassinating a defector. Plus there was something about getting hold of enough money to take over the world in there...

** The post-Shura arcs' [[AvertedTrope aversion]] of this trope demonstrates exactly why it's [[NecessaryWeasel necessary]]. After Kenshiro leaves the Land of Shura, the manga starts using villains who would have been [[MonsterOfTheWeek Punks of the Week]] in the ''first'' series (and in fact, the final villain was retconned into ''having been'' an ordinary GiantMook). While the series tries to [[ChangingOfTheGuard refocus on the younger supporting cast]], such as Ryu and Bat, inevitably Kenshiro is going to get involved in the fight, at which point the villains [[CatchPhrase don't even know that they're already dead]]. Even more than Land of Shura, these arcs are seen as a sign of terminal FranchiseZombie-ism.

** After defeating this threat, the party took some downtime clearing up loose ends (although one of them involved literally going to Hell), before the final arc started: Vecna, the SealedEvilInACan from the Briarwoods arc, was revived for real, and [[AGodAmI succeeded in becoming a God]]. Vox Machina had to seek help from the Gods themselves to find the items needed for a ritual to seal Vecna away once more. It was made clear that this was as far as it would go: win or lose, this would be the end of Vox Machina's story, and [[ChangingOfTheGuard the next arc would begin a new campaign with new characters.]]

** Then, in the [[Series/StargateSG1 the series]], it turns out that was just one of many Goa'uld with many ships. However, he turned out to have been the leader of all the Goa'uld, and actually commanded many ships, although they hadn't been seen. But now he's been replaced by Apophis, who's very similar in most respects.

** The series crashed into the ceiling headlong when it went for a PostScriptSeason. They had already killed off the greatest warlord of the Century's End, Kenshiro's big brother and EvilCounterpart Raoh, and Kenshiro was already such an InvincibleHero that there was no way that they could either power him up any more or give him another credible challenge, but they had to try anyway. The Land of Shura arc was the result of their attempt to scale up Raoh; they created an EvilCounterpart ''style'' to Hokuto Shinken based on an evil version of ''[[KiAttacks touki]]'', and had Kaioh be [[spoiler: Kenshiro's ''biological'' older brother instead of his sempai]]. They also [[spoiler: made the Land of Shura be Kenshiro's birthplace]] in an attempt to rebuild the EmotionalTorque of the first series. General fan consensus is that it didn't quite work.

* Creator/TerryPratchett's "Witch" books in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' series were accused of this. Granny Weatherwax always had to fight a stronger foe - in this case, stronger meaning "better at mind magic" -- until, as of ''Discworld/CarpeJugulum'', the fight didn't seem like it had a point. Terry wisely took the criticism and moved Granny to a supporting role in the Tiffany books afterwards.

* Creator/TerryPratchett's "Witch" books in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' series were accused of this. Granny Weatherwax always had to fight a stronger foe - in this case, stronger meaning "better at mind magic" - until, as of ''Discworld/CarpeJugulum'', the fight didn't seem like it had a point. Terry wisely took the criticism and moved Granny to a supporting role in the Tiffany books afterwards.

* ''Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer'' went through this in the first five seasons. First season: Vampire (the master). Second season: Three vampires, all especially vicious (Spike, Dru & Angelus). Third season: A "true" demon (the Mayor). Fourth season: A Demonic cyborg (Adam) and a military installation (the Initiative). Fifth season: A god (Glory). Sixth season broke with the formula: its BigBad [[spoiler: was made out to be three rather ineffectual, if evil, nerdy wannabe villains. They were [[BaitAndSwitch switched out]] in favour of Willow in the last few episodes. She]] may have been at about the same power level as Glory by that point, but the seventh season ramps it up again with The First Evil and an army of uber-vamps. Eighth season (in the comic books) has the FlyingBrick Twilight, who may outdo [[spoiler: Willow]] and Glory just with his level of invulnerability.

* ''Series/{{Haven}}'' ran into this in its later seasons. It originally started out as the story of Audrey Parker, a [[StrangeCopInAStrangeLand cop]] who is stuck in the town of Haven, Maine and helps the [[DifferentlyPoweredIndividual Troubled]] townspeople, all while trying to piece together the mystery of her past and who exactly the Colorado Kid is. As the seasons go on, Audrey has to deal with [[CosmicEntity cosmic entities]], reincarnation, and TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. More specifically, she finds out [[spoiler: that she is immortal and constantly returns to the town of Haven every 27 years, after which she goes into a magical barn and takes the Troubles with her. Unfortunately, things get messed up and she can no longer do so. Then she finds out actually the reincarnation of Mara, an evil CosmicEntity who created the troubles and who was punished by being forced to help the Troubled. They end up dealing with her lover, William, before having to deal with Mara herself, who unleashes all sorts of Troubles on the town. The final season is Audrey dealing with Mara's father,a SatanicArchetype who cuts Haven off from the rest of the world, wipes everyone's memories of its existence, and almost destroys the world.]]

** The first on-stream arc had Vox Machina adventuring through the Underdark, fighting Duergar, masmatched abominations and eventually a powerful Beholder that had taken control of an Illithid colony.

* Bowser, of ''SuperMarioBros'', has gone from locking a Princess in a castle to cursing her whole castle with creepy dreamworld-doors, to lifting it up into space, to trying to take over galaxies. But, of course, Mario hasn't been lazy either. He's gone from "my only move is to jump on your head", to literal kick-boxer, to using the power of the stars, to ''body possession''. Oh, the number of his power-up-items also increased rapidly.

* In ''Manga/{{Dragonball}}'', we go from a military commander who wants to be taller before ruling the world, to an evil demon king who actually succeeds, to the proud and arrogant prince of Goku's extra-terrestrial warrior race that can crush Goku and his friends with little effort, to the ruler of the galaxy that ''commanded'' said prince, to a genetic amalgam created from various good and bad guys including said ruler, and the... what can probably be called the ancient magical abomination Majin Buu, who destroys planets and people with ease for the hell of it. SerialEscalation has made it so the series is widely known for parody-level absurd battle powers and fights, where you could practically sneeze and destroy a planet, but put it back almost as easily. There was a single reversal in ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', however, when it's made clear that said galactic ruler was in fact a greater threat than most of his successors; this is a result of trying to work some sanity back into a franchise riddled with [[PostScriptSeason Post Script Seasons]].

* The villains of ''Film/TheDarkKnightSaga'' seriously up their game with every installment. [[spoiler: [[Film/BatmanBegins Ra's Al Ghul]]]] had lofty plans, but they were foiled in the end by Batman and Gordon, the biggest thing he did that actually ''stuck'' was probably burning down Wayne mansion. [[Film/TheDarkKnight The Joker]] caused mass panic all over Gotham and, though he didn't directly kill very many people, he still managed to [[spoiler: drive Harvey Dent, the hero of Gotham, insane, ending with Batman taking the blame for all of the people Harvey killed as Two-Face]]. [[Film/TheDarkKnightRises Bane]] put Batman out of commission for several months and [[spoiler: completely took over the city while he was gone. He also came very close to detonating a nuclear bomb in the middle of Gotham]].

[[folder: Gamebooks]]

[[folder: Web Original]]

* ''OnePiece'' comes with Plot Leveling built in. We start in the East Blue, the weakest of the four main seas. Then move up to the Grand Line, which lives up to its hype of being difficult to sail and survive. Finally, the sailors who travel across the Grand Line's second half, the New World, refer to the first half as "Paradise" out of comparison to the New World. However the author throws a curveball once in a while. For example, right after the Alabasta arc, which Luffy took two defeats to just barely win on his third try against Crocodile, was the Jaya arc, the main antogonist was Bellamy. It took Luffy [[CurbStompBattle one punch]] to put him down, without stretching.

* Occurred with the first four ''FranchiseDieHard'' films: first an office building is held hostage, then an airport, then all of New York City, and finally all of the USA. The fifth movie toned it back to a smaller time villain in a foreign country.

* Occurred with the first four ''DieHard'' films: first an office building is held hostage, then an airport, then all of New York City, and finally all of the USA. The fifth movie toned it back to a smaller time villain in a foreign country.

* The ''Franchise/MetalGear'' series of games went to increasingly absurd lengths ([[DeconstructorFleet naturally]]) to justify Solid Snake's continual returns from retirement. ''VideoGame/MetalGear2'' involved a replacement for petroleum and theft of nearly every nuclear weapon in the world. ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' involved genetically engineered super soldiers, a clone brother who took the CainAndAbel trope too much to heart, and ''invisible'' nukes. ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2'' involved mass-produced Metal Gears, an anti-Metal Gear, a third clone brother, a kidnapped president, a Metal Gear ''fortress'', and [[GainaxEnding whatever the hell happened at the end]].'' VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' had to work hard to top that, but it did. ''[[Awesome/MetalGear And it was awesome]]''.

* ''OnePiece'' comes with Plot Leveling built in. We start in the East Blue, the weakest of the four main seas. Then move up to the Grand Line, which lives up to its hype of being difficult to sail and survive. Finally, the sailors who travel across the Grand Line's second half, the New World, refer to the first half as "Paradise" out of comparison to the New World. However the author throws a curveball once in a while. For example, right after the Alabasta arc, which Luffy took two defeats to just barely win on his third try against Crocodile, was the Jaya arc, the main antogonist was Bellamy. It took Luffy [[CurbStompBattle one punch]] to put him down, [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome without stretching]].

* ''Franchise/LyricalNanoha'' hit the power ceiling with ''[[Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaAs As]]'', after Nanoha, Fate and the Wolkenritter take care of the Book of Darkness. After that, these people are the strongest mages in the multiverse, and going up from the Book of Darkness required a lateral move; instead of a more powerful adversary, ''[[Anime/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaStrikerS StrikerS]]'' went with a conspiracy headed by a MadScientist, brought in some new trainees, and added in office politics that prevented Riot Force 6 from operating at full power. After that, they scaled the plot back down and invoked ChangingOfTheGuard for ''[[Audioplay/StrikerSSoundStageX Sound Stage X]]'' and ''[[Manga/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaViVid ViVid]]'', with less-galactic-level issues dealt with by younger protagonists. Riot Force 6 was reassembled in ''Manga/MagicalRecordLyricalNanohaForce'', but [[ContestedSequel opinion is divided]] on how well that went.

* In ''Manga/{{Dragonball}}'', we go from a military commander who wants to be taller, to an evil demon king, to the proud and arrogant prince of Goku's race that can crush Goku and his friends with ease, to the ruler of the galaxies that ''commanded'' said prince, to a genetic amalgam created from various good and bad guys including said ruler, and the... what can probably be called abomination Majin Buu, who destroys planets and people for the hell of it. SerialEscalation has made it so the series is widely known for parody-level absurd power levels, where you could practically sneeze and destroy a planet, but put it back almost as easily. There was a single reversal in ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', however, when it's made clear that said galactic ruler was in fact a greater threat than most of his successors; this is a result of trying to work some sanity back into a franchise riddled with [[PostScriptSeason Post Script Seasons]].

'''Dawn:''' Only one place left to go... (''[[HeavenAbove points skyward]]'') we go for GOD!\\
'''[[RecordNeedleScratch RRRIIIIIPPPP!]]'''\\

* In ''Literature/LoneWolf'', the first five books are all over the place, but the first twelve books ultimately formed a self-contained series that focused on dealing with the threat of the Darklords, a world-class threat that could conquer all Magnamund if not stopped. After this, the Grand Master series had to scale up from that, so they included [[NewPowersAsThePlotDemands a third tier of Kai powers that had never been heard of before]] and made use of [[BiggerBad Naar]], the god of darkness [[TheManBehindTheMan who was behind the Darklords]], using minions who made the Darklords look like chumps and yet hadn't taken any part in the Darklords' ambition. After the Grand Master saga was completed and Lone Wolf became the Supreme Master, the game reversed course. Instead of creating [[SerialEscalation a fourth power tier]], it had [[ChangingOfTheGuard the player take on the role of one of Lone Wolf's apprentices]], who had Grand Master abilities (and a few new ones) but didn't actually deal with stuff on the Supreme Master's level. Forgivable, though, as book 20 has Lone Wolf basically going ToHellAndBack, and if he'd actually killed Naar then any further books would just feel like mopping up the remaining dregs of evil.

[[folder: Web Original]]
* ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'' has this, though justified by the show being a ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' campaign so the plot had to level up with the players. We arrive in the middle of it, since the campaign had been running for two years before it was streamed.
** Vox Machina started out fighting various minor threats, with [[Creator/MatthewMercer the Dungeon Master]] house-ruling weaker versions of iconic monsters like Liches and Dragons for the party to fight. Their first major StoryArc involved freeing a [[DemonicPossession demonically-posessed]] [[FakeKing royal family]].
** The first on-stream arc had Vox Machina adventuring through the Underdark, fighting Duergar, masmatched abominations and eventually a powerful Beholder that had taken control of an Illithid colony.
** A minor "filler" story arc occurred after, though it did involve one half of the party fighting an adult White Dragon.
** The third arc saw Vox Machina liberating the hometown of one of its members from an [[UnholyMatrimony evil married couple]] of a powerful vampire and sorceress who sought to revive a GodOfEvil. In doing so, they had to start a full-on revolution among the populace and fight an entire undead army.
** The next arc is where things really stepped up.''Four'' Ancient Chromatic Dragons descend on the world, [[NothingIsTheSameAnymore destroying several major cities entirely]] and each alone posing more of a threat than anything the party has fought before, requiring the party to gather [[InfinityPlusOneSword legendary weapons]] from all across the world.
** After defeating this threat, the party took some downtime clearing up loose ends (although one of them involved literally going to Hell), before the final arc started: Vecna, the SealedEvilInACan from the Briarwoods arc, was revived for real, and [[AGodAmI succeeded in becoming a God]]. Vox Machina had to seek help from the Gods themselves to find the items needed for a ritual to seal Vecna away once more. It was made clear that this was as far as it would go: win or lose, this would be the end of Vox Machina's story, and [[ChangingOfTheGuard the next arc would begin a new campaign with new characters.]]
[[/folder]]

** For all of 5 minutes until he got stronger verions of his old powers, letting him beat someone who was apparantly as strong as him pre-sacrifice without [[NextTierPowerUp Bankai]] or his [[SuperpoweredEvilSide Hollow Mask]].

* The villains of ''Film/TheDarkKnightSaga'' seriously up their game with every installment. [[spoiler: [[Film/BatmanBegins Ra's Al Ghul]]]] had lofty plans, but they were foiled in the end by Batman and Gordon, the biggest thing he did that actually ''stuck'' was probably burning down Wayne mansion. [[Film/TheDarkKnight The Joker]] caused mass panic all over Gotham and, though he didn't directly kill very many people, he still managed to [[spoiler: drive Harvey Dent, the hero of Gotham, insane, ending with Batman taking the blame for all of the people Harvey killed as Two-Face]]. [[Film/TheDarkKnightRises Bane]] put Batman out of commision for several months and [[spoiler: completely took over the city while he was gone. He also came very close to detonating a nuclear bomb in the middle of Gotham]].

** To give some perspective, ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3'', a prequel to the rest of the series, revolved around... destroying a 1st generation superweapon and assassinating a defector. Plus there was something about getting ahold of enought money to take over the world in there...

** And the [=RPGs=]. Take ''VideoGame/PaperMario''. First you had invincible Bowser take over the kingdom, then the Shadow Queen nearly take over the world (and it's an unsealed thousand year old demon with lightning powers too), and then Count Bleck (and [[spoiler:Dimentio]]) try to destroy the entirety of existence (in the former's case for good, latter's case to remake in own image). ''[[VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi Mario & Luigi]]'' series too to an extent, the first game had Cackletta steal Peach's voice, second had aliens try to conquer the planet and genocide the population and the latter kinda went down a level again with Fawful and the Dark Star.