History Main / RestartAtLevelOne

* AssassinsCreedBrotherhood begins with ATasteOfPower but after the attack on Monteriggioni, Ezio is badly wounded from a pair of gunshot wounds. When you regain control of him, it turns out his body cannot heal as fast as it used to, so he won't be able to perform at top efficiency, leaving you with five health squares; his armor and weapons were also lost during the siege.

* In ''EightBitTheater'', Super Double Evil Sarda levels down the Light Warriors and takes away their class upgrades (except Thief, who got his class upgrade [[ItMakesSenseInContext stolen from his past self]]). When Chaos shows up shortly after, the Light Warriors excuse themselves to go level back up [[YouHave48Hours within 24 hours]]. Needless to say, things don't work out for them.

Also known as being "Metroided."

* In ''EightBitTheater'', Super Double Evil Sarda levels down the Light Warriors and takes away their class upgrades (except Thief, who got his class upgrade [[ItMakesSenseInContext stolen from his past self]]). When Chaos shows up shortly after, the Light Warriors excuse themselves to to level back up within 24 hours. Needless to say, things don't work out for them.

* Apparently a running theme in the Disgaea series: ''Disgaea4'' gives us Valvatorez, a vampire who was the former "Tyrant" and ruler of the netherworld. After he refused to drink any more blood, he lost all his power and took a low-level job training Prinnies.

* Averted in FireEmblem RadiantDawn : When the Greil mercenaries (the heroes of the first game) finally make their comeback all are already at tier 2 of the 3 tier system, most at the higher end of it. The first few chapters feel like ATasteOfPower except that its in the middle of the game. You then switch back to the Dawn Brigade every now and then where just staying alive can be a struggle.

* Adol is back to level one, usually without the fancy equipment from the previous game, in each of the {{Ys}} games. Given how frequently he starts a game by being seriously injured and needing to spend several days in bed (Usually due to falling off a ship or the ship sinking outright), this is actually justified on occasion.

----

* ''KingdomHearts: ChainOfMemories'' slaps Sora, Donald and Goofy with a brand new mechanic, plus EasyAmnesia as they progress through castle that they spend the whole game in. In ''KingdomHeartsII'' being asleep for a year explains the similar depowering.
** ''Chains of Memories'' {{Hand Wave}}s the power loss as you being the in the villains' house and having to play by their rules. Notably, Sora ''does'' seem to keep all his HP from the first game, since his starting HP is the same as the first game's max HP.
** ''KingdomHearts358DaysOver2'' demonstrates that Roxas is a {{Badass}} by Organization standards, but in his first appearance in KingdomHeartsII, he's downgraded to level 1 and doesn't even know what the Keyblade is. Perhaps {{justified}} by [[spoiler: [=DiZ=]/Ansem tampering with his memory, personality, etc...]]

* ''CaveStory'': If you're on track for the GoldenEnding, then upon entering the Last Cave "You feel a black wind blow through you. All weapons dropped to Level 1!" (Mercifully, by this point the player may have the Spur--which doesn't need to level up--and/or the Nemesis--which [[LethalJokeItem works best at level 1]].) This happens ''again'' when you enter [[BonusLevelOfHell Sacred Ground]].

* Possible example. Auron of ''FinalFantasyX'': legendary guardian of the last High Summoner who vanquished Sin. Everyone in Spira knows how awesome he is. He one shots a giant lizard during his first appearance in the game proper. What powers does he actually have? A piercing BFS and a moderately higher than normal attack stat. Take the first item away, and the attack power doesn't mean a whole lot.
** [[spoiler:He is ''somewhat'' dead at this point. Maybe he spent the intervening time between dying and the start of ''FFX'' trying to not become a fiend instead of training.]]
** Besides, [[spoiler:he had to fulfill his promise to Jecht to look after Tidus, so the boy's safeguarding most likely took priority over maintaining his physical ability.]]
** Includes Lulu and Wakka, both who were already guardians to other summoners--despite not ever having finished the journey, they generally made it as far as the Calm Lands, yet they are at absolute starting point when joining you.
*** FridgeBrilliance in the Sequel. With Sin destroyed and the fayth resting, Yuna no longer can access her frightening summoning abilities and white magic. Essentially, most of her training became useless. She and Rikku were also among the weakest in melee fighting in the first game.

* ''{{Okami}}'' had you playing a God in wolf form regaining its power lost [[GodsNeedPrayerBadly after 100 years of faithless people.]] Not to mention that she just came back from the dead...
** And the fact that [[spoiler:due to messing around with time travel and whatnot, Amaterasu/Shiranui had gone through a heck of a lot before dying, and was considerably weakened as a result.....Hence being weaker at the start of the game, thus needing Past!Shiranui to save Amaterasu in the future, leading the former to go back to die, so that the latter can go and be saved, and go on to defeat Yami]]. [[MindScrew Got all that]]?

* ''{{Gothic}} 2'' has your character trapped under rocks for a a significant span of time at the end of the first game used to explain why you are level 1.

** When listing Ash's accomplishments, the only ones mentioned are the ones from the current region. Before the start of Unova, he has earned 32 badges and 7 Frontier Symbols; He is Champion of the Orange League, placed Top 16 in the Indigo League, Top 8 in both the Johto League and Hoenn League, and ''Top 4'' of the Sinnoh League; It's implied he would have won had he beaten Tobias. He has faced off with and defeated or befriended at least one member of each Legendary species, and several of some of them. He's still treated like he's a newbie with no experience, even by the writers.

** Some lazy justification is given for Garrus' low-levels, who suffers grievous injuries in his recruitment mission (a fact we are reminded of by his scarred face and gaping cracks in his armor throughout the entire game). Tali, however, doesn't get even that much. However, keeping in mind that Tali is recruited in the second half of the game and all squad members join with the same level as Shepard, she is likely to have high levels at that point (even though not as high as she probably was in the end of ''ME'').
*** Not at all. The enemies you are fighting are already pretty badass at the beginning of ME2, and you get paid buttloads more for your missions than you did in ME1! You're [[FridgeBrilliance ''still a high-level character'']] you're just going up against the [[EldritchAbomination original over-lords of the bad guys]] from ME1. They could have just called it Level 50/60 + ''x''...
** Actually, hitting the level or credits cap in ME1 does give you bonuses in ME2, leading credence to the above theory.

* ''{{Metroid}}'', of course.

* In ''MegaManLegends 2'', Roll tells Volnutt that she sold off all his weapons from the first game to make repairs to the ship.

* ''TheWitcher'' implies Geralt having come back from the dead is why he starts at level 1.
** Played straight The Witcher 2. There is no explanation given for why the same guy who had become a one-man-army by the end of the first game is getting his ass kicked every time he faces more than two opponents in the Prologue.

* AssassinsCreedBrotherhood begins with ATasteOfPower but after the attack on Monteriggioni, Ezio is badly wounded from a gunshot. When you regain control of him, it turns out his body cannot heal as fast as it used to, so he won't be able to perform at top efficiency, leaving you with five health squares. His best armor and weapons were also lost during the siege.

* Prestige Mode in every CallOfDuty game since ''[[ModernWarfare Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare]]''

** ''KingdomHearts358DaysOver2'' demonstrates that Roxas is [[{{Understatement}} somewhat of a]] {{Badass}} by Organization standards, but in his first appearance in KingdomHeartsII, he's downgraded to level 1 and doesn't even know what the Keyblade is. Perhaps {{justified}} by [[spoiler: [=DiZ=]/Ansem tampering with his memory, personality, etc...]]

* Done rather amusingly in {{Robopon}} Ring and Cross, the sequel to Robopon Sun, [[NoExportForYouStar and Moon]]. You play as the same character, going to another county to enter a tournament, yet you don't have any of the {{Mons}} you had from the first game. On the way to the aforementioned country, the main character suddenly realizes that he left them at home.

* In the original ''TheKarateKid'' series, Daniel is trained by Mr. Miyagi to become a karate champion, but in the second film, he is ''still'' getting his butt kicked in Okinawa with barely any evidence that he knows anything about fighting. Only the ice sheet chopping scene and the climatic fight have Daniel fight like he was trained by the OldMaster.

* ''{{Game/Blur}}'' has Legend Mode, which is similar to ''ModernWarfare'''s Prestige, except each time you enter Legend Mode, you unlock a special Legendary car that you get to keep on the next trip up the [[CharacterLevel fan level]] ladder.