Platform Game / Super Not-Drowning Skills

Played Straight

 * The Addams Family  series:
 * The Addams Family  (NES): If you dive in the lake without any gear, your health meter would start gradually depleting. But if you find a diving mask with a snorkel, you can swim through a set of underground caverns with no problems.
 * The Addams Family 2  (NES/SNES) also plays it straight.
 * Adventure Island  series play this trope straight starting at  2  (NES).
 * Barney's Hide & Seek Game  (Genesis): In this game not just the reptilians Barney and Baby Bop, but even human children can survive underwater without any equipment whatsoever.
 * This is even more disturbing if you remember that this is an educational game for small children.
 * Darwin would've wanted it this way.
 * In the freeware  Binary Boy, the Boy he will instantly obtain a scuba mask out of nowhere as soon as he is submerged and is able to stay underwater indefinitely because of it.
 * In  Blue's Journey  for the Neo Geo, the time Blue can spend underwater, even icy water, is limited only by the ordinary level timer.
 * Bug  had Quaria, where the entire level was underwater. What's weird was that the previous level was Splot, a swamp with instant-lethal water.
 * Chack'n Pop  has no limit on how long Chack'n can swim. Then again, the Monstas can't drown either.
 * Contra  (NES): For characters that die if they touch anything that isn't friendly or a powerup, they sure can stay with their head underwater for as long as they like without any harm whatsoever.
 * Donkey Kong Country  (SNES) plays this straight.
 * Quite ironic seeing how gorillas in Real Life  possess  Super Drowning Skills.
 * Donkey Kong Country 2  has a contradictory depiction of Super Not Drowning Skills. In most water levels, your character can stay underwater indefinitely. However, in the swamp levels the water acts as Bottomless Pits....you are dead if you fall into it. That said, the swamp's sludge might well be too thick for the Kong to swim in, or the swamp is poisonous.
 * Donkey Kong 64  is probably the worst case due to how the lack of an Oxygen Meter causes it to stick out in comparison to  Super Mario 64  and  Banjo-Kazooie  (this one made by the same company even), games that influenced its general design and averted this trope.
 * Averted in  Donkey Kong Country Returns, where the Kongs apparently forgot how to swim, and all water is treated as a Bottomless Pit.
 * In the sequel  Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, the Kongs can swim again, but there's is an oxygen meter.
 * As a nod to Returns, when the Kongs go to the beach level, the water is still deadly for them like in the same beach of the previous game, but because their island was frozen and the water is too cold.
 * Felix the Cat  (NES) can stay underwater for as long as he likes.
 * In  The Flintstones  for the Sega Genesis, Fred Flintstone never has any trouble breathing in the Under the Sea level.
 * The PC game  Jazz Jackrabbit  and its sequel.
 * In  Little Nemo: The Dream Master, Nemo can't drown unless he has a Power Up Mount that can't swim, in which case he has to abandon it quickly.
 * Pitfall II: Lost Caverns  had elaborate parts where you swim — and this is an Atari 2600 game.
 * Purple  lets player stay underwater as long as there's time left on the counter.
 * Ristar  (Genesis) plays this straight, but then, who said stars need to breathe? Of course, there is no planet big enough to fir a star in either, so it's probably best not to think about this too hard.
 * Mushroom Kingdom Fusion
 * Both averted and played straight in the 8-bit versions of  Sonic the Hedgehog, given that you can drown in the first two acts of Labyrinth Zone but not the third one, despite the latter being set entirely underwater.
 * The main character of  Spelunky  is able to go into deep pits of water for extended periods of time without losing damage, despite having no visible breathing apparatus.
 * Averted at the same time, however, as being underwater  will  kill cave spiders. Of course, oxygen is the least of Spelunky's worries underwater...
 * Despite being cursed with Super Drowning Skills in the first game, Spyro in the second game is suddenly able to at least paddle on the surface at a reasonable speed. After paying Moneybags to teach him to swim, he can not only swim and "charge" underwater, but also hold his breath indefinitely.
 * Super Mario Bros.  series:
 * Super Mario Bros 1  (NES) had  both  this and Super Drowning Skills. In the underwater levels, you can hold your breath for the whole level. In the land levels, bodies of water work just like Bottomless Pits (there are more in abundance in  Lost Levels ).
 * Super Mario Bros. 3  (NES)
 * Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins  (Game Boy)
 * Super Mario World  (SNES): Not only can Mario or Luigi go underwater, so can Yoshi.
 * Super Paper Mario : The main characters can breathe underwater, but not in space. Fanon speculates that Mario can filter oxygen out of the water with his moustache.
 * Super Mario Galaxy  features the exact opposite. Mario can breathe in space, but not underwater. This may be justified in that he spends the game with a mystical star child beneath his hat, whose specific purpose is to help him travel the stars. Though this doesn't explain how other NPCs like the Toad Brigade can breathe...
 * Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga  (Game Boy Advance)
 * Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story  added a section where Bowser could breathe underwater indefinitely al a this trope. Thankfully, he couldn't breathe fire outside of battle though.
 * Wario Land  series: Being a spinoff from the  Super Mario Bros.  series, it also uses this trope.
 * The exception is  Wario Land: Shake It!  where Wario uses a subwarine in underwater levels.
 * New Super Mario Bros.  and  New Super Mario Bros. Wii, being very much like the NES/SNES days use this, and various ROM Hacks prove that Yoshi can breathe underwater, a stark contrast to Sunshine.
 * And now  Super Mario 3D Land  is the first 3D style Mario game that features this, considering it is a bridge between 3D and 2D style Mario games.
 * In the first  Rayman  the main character instantly drowned when he fell in water. In  Rayman 2  he can swim in every direction, but can only breathe for about 10 seconds unless assisted by Carmen the Whale's air bubbles. In  Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc  swimming is simplified by him being able to breathe underwater indefinitely and being limited to moving in the X-axis. In  Rayman Origins  and  Legends  every playable character can breathe underwater. Suspension of disbelief could be applied in  Origins  considering the characters are all inexplicable fantasy creatures, but that comes to a halt in  Legends  with the conception of the new playable heroine Barbara, who is obviously human.
 * Noodle the snake protagonist of  Snake Pass  can swim underwater as long as he likes, and he moves even better than he does on land.
 * Clarence's Big Chance : Actually a plot point in the Worst Ending.

Justified

 * In  Banjo-Tooie, Banjo has an Oxygen Meter. In Jolly Roger's Lagoon, Mumbo Jumbo casts a spell that oxygenates the water so that Banjo can breathe it.
 * Commander Keen 4 : You're wearing full scuba gear in the underwater level. In other levels, you have Super Drowning Skills.


 * In Cun-Cun & Santi, the characters will automatically have a bubble/helmet on their heads the moment they dive under the water.
 * In Cun-Cun & Santi 2 there are zones with polluted water on wich the characters automatically drown.
 * In Earthcraft 3, however, there is an Oxygen Meter.
 * In Earthcraft 4 similarly to the first game the characters will put a scuba mask the moment they dive.


 * In the Nintendo Switch version of  Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Funky Kong is the only playable character who can stay underwater indefinitely. When he goes underwater, he's shown with diving gear on him.
 * Gish : Character is a tarball.
 * This ability is gained in  INSIDE  after the Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl pumps something into the player character. Before then, your character will be able to swim for a bit before needing to get air.
 * James Pond  series: The main character is a talking fish. In the second game known as  Robocod  - he wears a mechanical life support suit allowing him to completely invert this trope... by wandering around on land. WITHOUT A HELMET. (Presumably his gills are fully enclosed.)
 * The "Scuba Gear" powerup grants players this ability in  LittleBigPlanet . Made safer by the fact that you can't take it off while you're in water, unless you touch an Enhancement Remover. Of course, it doesn't protect you from other underwater hazards...
 * The main character of  Mega Man (Classic)  series is a robot, but he still creates bubbles as if he were breathing, though. The bubbles are probably air escaping from whatever open space exists in his robot body.
 * Mega Man Zero  give Zero similar underwater properties, but plays with in it one level where Zero does have a time limit to get inside a submarine before it dives too deep and the pressure crushes him.
 * Metroid  series: The main character wears a Powered Armor suit that allows her to move through most environments. While normally slow underwater, the Gravity Suit eventually turns water into a formality, since you can move through it as if it wasn't there.
 * Ratchet from  Ratchet & Clank  cannot breathe underwater at first, until he finds an O2 mask, which allows him to subsequently breathe for as long as is needed.
 * Spyro the Dragon  series (Playstation), starting with  Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! : In these games it's a magical ability.
 * In  Tak: The Great Juju Challenge, Lok (who normally has Super Drowning Skills, due to fish hating him) can walk around underwater indefinitely while he's wearing the Lobster Suit, which was specifically designed for underwater exploration.
 * In the NES  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles  game, one of the levels involves swimming in the Hudson River to disable a series of underwater bombs. The four playable characters are all turtles, which means that they do have greater underwater survival ability than most; however, the timer on the bombs is short enough (two minutes, thirty seconds) that breath is the least of their worries. (If the timer runs out, it's an instant game over, but if a turtle dies in some other way before it does, it resets for the next one...)
 * In the video game adaptation of  Toy Story 2, Buzz can stay underwater for as long as he likes, but it makes sense considering that 1, he always wear a helmet, and 2, he's a toy and doesn't even have lungs.
 * Trine  initially averts this trope, with all three playable characters having their own oxygen meters that only reset when you get air—switching to another character nets another full air meter, but switching back to the original character keeps his/her oxygen meter where it was when they were switched out. However, a magic item later on in the game allows one character to play this trope straight - as long as the item is equipped on that character, they can swim underwater indefinitely.
 * In  Wonder Boy in Monster World, Shion needs Poseidon's Trident to swim underwater. (Just like  God of War , oddly enough.)
 * World of Illusion: Starring Mickey Mouse & Donald Duck  (Genesis): The title characters swim underwater in big air bubbles, containing their whole bodies. Which is an example of Acceptable Breaks from Reality in itself.
 * In  The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse, Mickey's head is surrounded by an air bubble if he is wearing the magician outfit while underwater. With the other costumes, he has no air supply and takes damage after several seconds.