Recently, I made a topic about level drain in RPGs, but it's occurred to me that there are also action games (that aren't generally considered RPGs) where it's possible to, in a sense, level down.

For example, take Super Mario Brothers, a game which most people here are probably familiar with. In this game, you start small, but if you pick up a mushroom, you grow big and can break blocks with your head. Once you're big, if you pick up a fire flower, you gain the ability to shoot fireballs, which is incredibly useful (especially for killing certain enemies you can't stomp, or when you're underwater (don't ask why fireballs work so well under water)). However, if you get hit by an enemy or projectile, you will level down to small Mario, losing those power-ups. (Getting hit when small is a death.) (Edge case: If you collect a fire flower when small, you grow big but don't get fire; this can only happen if you get hit after hitting the ? block but before picking up the flower.)

Cave Story also has leveling down. Each weapon has 3 levels of power, and if you get hit, your currently equipped weapon will lose some experience, possibly causing your weapon to level down. Weapons that level up faster level down faster, so it may take a lot of hits for the SMG to level down; on the other hand, getting hit while using the Nemesis will likely level it down all the way to 1. If you want to keep your Nemesis at max level, you'll need to avoid getting hit, or switch to another weapon before you get hit.

So, what do you think of this sort of mechanic?

Blaster Master has the same leveling down mechanic also. You can power up your pea shooter to fps shredder. But you could lose power quickly by the short hit invincibility.
Just remembered Castlevania now. Section Z? -shrugs-
I would be up for it. It would be useful in one hit death sidescroller shooters.

Too bad this mechanic isn't explored too much. It seems to be used infrequently. It's punching with your fist :)

Transistor if you lose all your HP, you lose one of your weapon abilities for a while. Other games you can get disarmed which can greatly mess up your current power level.

I've wondered how a game where you start at max level would go, and you can lower your abilities to get higher scores and maybe better endings are available when you aren't as powerful. You'd probably find your sweet spot where it's not too hard but you aren't all-powerful either.

Some vertical shmups (in particular, the Touhou series) have a mechanic where you lose some, not all, of your power on death. This makes death hurt, but avoids making the game into a 1 life shmup the way many shmups (including, I believe, R-Type, and also Zero Wing) end up being.

(Also, dying in Touhou resets your bomb count to 3, which is sometimes useful if you're trying to go for a high score, and at least one of the games makes it easy to farm lives by using bombs for the invincibility and then grazing large numbers of bullets.) Reminds me of Metal Saga (and possibly other games in the Metal Max series). If a vehicle with no armor panels gets hit, some part of the vehicle will be damaged, and if damaged twice, it will be broken, requiring repair. (Note, however, that this particular game is an RPG, not an action game.)

The mechanic is great if used correctly as you used in the example above. One I would say that has this mechanic as well might be the contra games. You pick up certain weapons like flamethrower, minigun and other weapons. However, if you are hit using a certain weapon, you lose that weapon and go to the generic starting weapon.

So technically, this mechanic encourages the player to not get hit and take it slow. In addition, usually some games that use this make it so to power up again, the powers are split usually through half the level to provide balance.

Don't forget the classic Legend of Zelda mechanic of leveling down. Full health your sword shoots projectiles. Get hit...it's over. I think it was a very common mechanic in the NES days. I don't think Castlevania counts as a true downgrade though because you have to die first. It's more like just starting over to be fair. Same for Contra.

Then, we have the Ghost 'n Goblins, Ghouls and ghosts mechanic. That's a true leveling down system.

It was quite a common feature in a 90s video games. While they can a boon to the player, the fact you can lose them quickly meant the player could not play too recklessly.

So losing a power up is "leveling down"?

Altered Beasts, Kid Chameleon and... way too many. Not to mention Shoot 'em up games.

Same can be said about most stragey games... Take Civilization 2 for instance: some wonders have expiration dates, military units have "health" and attack points that can/will decrease after a fight, also civil unrest in one city under a democratic govermnent can make your entire empire collapse (you'll lose all the trade and food bonuses that democracy gives you and all your cities will be in an unsustaintable sitiuation), etc...

:O another makes no sense topic

Or, in some cases, deliberately get hit if the power-up has an undesirable effect.

For example, in some Mario Maker troll levels, there are parts that only small Mario can get past, so it may be necessary for the player to get hit in advance. (And, of course, it being a troll level, the level doesn't tell you that until it's too late, or you might have to go to the extra effort to avoid that power-up.)

There's also a couple examples in Cave Story where you might prefer the lower level versions of certain weapons. (Surprised nobody has said anything about my Nemesis example.) Unless you're talking about Castlevania Adventure (for the Game Boy), where your whip actually does get a step weaker when you get hit (in addition to taking damage). Get hit when your whip is shooting fireballs and it no longer has that ability. That feels different to me.

(I do remember that one of the Fantastic Worlds scenarios took advantage of this mechanic; there's one late-game advance that makes most wonders and units obsolete (and doesn't provide any replacement for the obsolete units, so you basically can't build any more of most units). It was near the end of the tech tree (with the game-winning advance shortly after it, though I believe there's a way to skip this advance), and once obtained, it would spread to all other civilizations next turn and even wipe out one of them.)