History Main / MeaninglessLives

** ''Sonic the Hedgehog 4'' (the Wii version, at least) is a huge example of this. A mediocre player could end up with over one hundred fifty lives at the time of beating the final boss.

* ''VideoGame/StreetFighter2010'' has unlimited continues that takes you the same exact stage where you died, which is no different from losing a single life. The only real penalty for getting a Game Over and continuing is the fact that your score is reset.

Then came game saving, a feature that allowed the player to quit and start again later more or less where they left off. ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZelda'' and ''VideoGame/{{Metroid}}'' were the first few to do this -- and note that they had no "lives", since the concept of having lives and the concept of saving are more or less contradictory. If you can save the game, it means the game can't force you to start at the beginning when you run out of lives -- the farthest back it can take you is the last place you saved, reducing the ability of a GameOver to be any more damaging to the player's progress than any other death.

* In the ''VideoGame/MegaMan'' platformers that aren't NintendoHard, losing your lives restarts the level. Big deal. Your life count is also reset every time you reload.
** ''MegaManPoweredUp'' allows players to farm lives up to 9 and save quite easily in the new version. Beating the boss of the level the free life is in isn't even required (though Roll bugs you about being "a little fast"). These lives aren't totally useless, as Mega Man loves its cheap shots in jumping puzzles (see Guts Man's level).
** ''VideoGame/MegaManX 5''/''X6'' were especially ridiculous, as getting a Game Over did not even make you lose your level checkpoint. Also, the littering of hostages in many stages, ''each'' of whom granted an extra life, meant maxing out at 9 lives was too easy.

** Or the sub tanks from ''MegaManX'' / Zero / ZX.

* In ''[[Main/{{Castlevania}} Castlevania]] II'', you literally continue from the exact same spot if you lose all your lives. The only catch is that you would lose all your hard-earned hearts.

** ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'': You get unnecessary lives, especially considering you always get four whenever you reload the game... Even better, your reward for OneHundredPercentCompletion in Mario 64 was [[AWinnerIsYou 99 of the bloody things]].

* In the PSP game ''PrinnyCanIReallyBeTheHero'', your character starts with 1,000 lives and the game consists of 10 levels. The game can be pretty hard at times, but you won't ever expend the 1,000 lives you start with, with most people losing somewhere between 100 and 300 over the course of the entire game.

* Averted in the original ''{{Rayman}}''. It had both lives and saving, but the lives were justified because the levels were NintendoHard, long enough for your level checkpoints to feel precious, and it had ''limited continues''.

** ''Mario and Wario'', a japan only Mario puzzler controlled with the SNES mouse, losing all your lives gives you a game over and... you can restart at the last level you were on, with no penalty ''at all.''

[[caption-width-right:194:Yes, that's a life counter going negative. [[PlatformHell Be glad it will let you do that.]]]]

[[quoteright:194:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/s_crappy_action_7942.png]]

* ''Syobon Action'' (a.k.a. ''Cat Mario'') starts you off with three lives with which to beat the [[PlatformHell ludicrously]] [[NintendoHard difficult]] game. Losing one resets you to the start of the course with one less life. [[MeaninglessLives Even if you have zero.]] Your typical first-time player can be expected to finish with around ''negative two hundred'' lives, or not at all, having given up long before then.

* [[PlatformHell Hell Platformer]] ''Shobon/Syobon Action'' has the ultimate in meaningless lives: The game never checks to see if you run out of lives. So the lives-remaining indicator can start at 2, and be -52 by the time you beat the game.

** Downplayed in the Lost Levels, as even though you can max out your life counter at 127-8 (depending on the version) in the first level, you can still easily lose them all before beating the game. Played straight in ''SuperMarioAllStars'', in which ''Lost Levels'' is the only game in the compilation where the player can save his progress at the last stage he played, a benefit not featured in the other games in the compilation.

** It seems Nintendo simply doesn't care anymore with ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros2'' - the central theme of the game is [[GoldFever collecting as many coins as possible]] and the game is filled with ways to collect massive amounts of them very quickly, including: gold fire flowers whose massive fireballs turn anything into coins, gold enemies that drop extra coins when defeated, blocks you can wear on your head for a steady coin output and even bonus levels that literally have coins raining down from the sky! In addition to this, the game is about as generous with the 1-Up mushrooms as Mario's other recent outings, so it's very easy to reach a life count in the triple digits without even trying!

*** And why does the lives counter have a leading zero if it maxes out at 9?
*** Also made those games infuriating. Looking for a boss's weakpoint? Okay, you don't have it, no big deal, just die to get to the stage select screen again. Oh, you have ''how many lives''? Get a book.
**** It's at its worst against High-Max in X6. He is [[HopelessBossFight outright invincible]] if you don't have a special weapon that can damage him.
** The latter parts of the ''VideoGame/MegaManZero'' series, and the ''[[VideoGame/MegaManZX ZX]]'' series seem to have begun to find a nice balance. You can save, yes, but only at certain locations in the game world - the trans servers. Lives, on the other hand, return you to the last 'checkpoint' in the level; normally the point where the screen went black for a moment loading the next area. Given how hard these games can get, lives suddenly become valuable - they let you resume without losing all your hard work by being sent back to your last save. At least, show it was for [[{{Chibi-Kibou}} me]].
*** Of course, in the case of the Zero series, you were expected to clear each stage without dying anyway...as well as without getting hit, moving through the stage at top speed, killing every enemy twice, and never using any powerups ever.

** In Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Minis March Again, which was the first game in the series to even HAVE lives, losing all of them causes you to... gain five more. Yeah...

* Every ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' game since ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'' (''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' was almost there, but not quite, since you couldn't save your game, let alone the number of lives you'd collected).

* ''{{Glover}}''. [[SoBadItsGood Oh lord, Glover.]] See, there was a [[ClassicCheatCode cheat that turned you into a frog.]] In the hub, there were insects flying around. Eating them as a frog gained you an extra life. And they respawned. It's possible to ''break the life counter'' - it starts showing powers, then ''gives up'' and letters and symbols appear instead. In essence, you had infinite lives.

** VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii has over a dozen intentional ways to get infinite (or high numbers of) 1-ups, and they're all documented in videos in the game. In other words, the game tells you how to get them. Although getting lives is trivial, losing them holds a little more weight as 7 deaths in one level (except on hard levels) makes the Game Guide pop up which means your file can [[LostForever never]] have shiny stars. Also, in multiplayer there isn't time to collect as many 1ups unless everyone cooperates, and running out means you need to sit out the level until it's completed or everyone dies.

*** The GBA version of ''[[VideoGame/YoshisIsland Yoshi's Island]]'' took this even further, since, like the original, it featured bonus games which could reward you with dozens of lives each play.
** ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'':
*** You get unnecessary lives, especially considering you always get four whenever you reload the game...
*** Even better, your reward for OneHundredPercentCompletion in Mario 64 was [[AWinnerIsYou 99 of the bloody things]].
--->'''LetsPlay/SirRonLionHeart:''' [[LetsPlay Alright! Another life we don't need!]]
*** There is a 1-Up right before the FinalBoss in the area where you respawn after death, so you effectively have infinite lives at that point.
** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine'' specifically had 1-Ups that respawned every time one entered a level and came back.
*** This means every time you die, you'd get that life back if you start near the 1-Up spawn.

*** Once you got [[spoiler:Luigi]], Peach's letters would contain TWENTY 1-Ups instead of five, making lives even more pointless with this character.
**** This might have been a nod to the fact that [[spoiler:Luigi's slippery control scheme]] made the game a bit harder.
**** Or that nobody has any faith in him to be competent on his own.
**** Except the letters are addressed to Mario.
**** Or that they realize how [[NintendoHard cruelly difficult]] the Shadow Luigi races are.
*** VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2 is this to about as much degree at the first game. The hub has the usual five odd lives, as well as an infinite supply in the basement via the Chance Cube in the casino (aka, about 20 possible lives to get for about a 100 coins apiece). And the standard five from Princess Peach's letters to Mario. And the Chance Cubes in most levels. And the fact unlike most 3D Mario games, you keep any lives you gain in a level if you exit without beating it, meaning easy 1-Up farming.
**** To say nothing of the [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqs7Q7jYzI4 infinite 1-Up trick]] about halfway through the game.
**** If you quit the game on one save file and go to another, the number of lives you had on the other save file will be transferred to the current one. This number can range from something small, like 2, to [[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/smg2_loads-o-lives_2630.jpg utter insanity.]]
** VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii has over a dozen intentional ways to get infinite (or high numbers of) 1-ups, and they're all documented in videos in the game. In other words, the game tells you how to get them. Although getting lives is trivial, losing them holds a little more weight as 7 deaths in one level (except on hard levels) makes the Game Guide pop up which means your file can [[LostForever never]] have shiny stars. Also, in multiplayer there isn't time to collect as many 1ups unless [[CompletelyMissingThePoint everyone cooperates]], and running out means you need to sit out the level until it's completed or everyone dies.

** It seems Nintendo simply doesn't care anymore with VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBros2 - the central theme of the game is [[GoldFever collecting as many coins as possible]] and the game is filled with ways to collect massive amounts of them very quickly, including: gold fire flowers whose massive fireballs turn anything into coins, gold enemies that drop extra coins when defeated, blocks you can wear on your head for a steady coin output and even bonus levels that literally have coins raining down from the sky! In addition to this, the game is about as generous with the 1-Up mushrooms as Mario's other recent outings, so it's very easy to reach a life count in the triple digits without even trying!
*** New Super Mario Bros. 2 seems to be more of a subversion. While lives are so plentiful there's really no reason to be in danger of getting a game over, the only way to get 5 stars on your file select screen is to max out the life counter.

* In the ''VideoGame/MegaMan'' platformers that aren't [[Main/{{NintendoHard}} Nintendo Hard]], losing your lives restarts the level. Big deal. Your life count is also reset every time you reload.

* In ''Street Fighter 2010'', losing all of your lives simply takes you to the continue screen, where you can restart on the very same stage anyway.

** -52? There are probably 2 people in the world who could beat the game with [[PlatformHell so few lives lost]]!

* In the ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' games, although ridiculously easy to collect in excess in certain places, the lives actually WERE useful, as if you reloaded a saved game or got a game over, you returned to the start of the level rather than the checkpoint. Lives also added a challenge if you hadn't reached a save point yet - if you got a game over, you went right back to the last save point and had to redo the levels from that point onward. The second game in the series had an enemy which actually knocked your extra lives out of you as opposed to killing you, but the enemy doesn't show up often enough to be that much of a nuisance.
** The lives were made slightly less meaningless in the second game, as saving the game requires a certain number of banana coins. If you cannot acquire the required coins before all your lives are lost, you cannot save. Thankfully, coins are fairly easy to acquire, and the first time you reach a new save point, saving the game is free.
** However, the GBA ports completely remove the entire purpose of lives, allowing the gamer to save anywhere, keep his or her lives after reloading and always allowing the gamer to restart from a level checkpoint. One can get 99 lives very quickly.
*** VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountryReturns is an aversion of this tropes, [[NintendoHard without question]].
* The multiplayer-oriented ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaFourSwordsAdventures'' has fairies that can be collected, representing lives. The fairies are everywhere. If you die, you lose one. It more-or-less eliminates the need for lives altogether.
** Not to mention the fact that at the end of every level, every 1000 force gems gives you a fairy. Since you need 2000 just to complete the level, that's two right there. Each level has, without exception, over four thousand force gems, and usually more. And that's not counting the infuriating mini-games that could get you ''even more'' fairies.
** And this was even more useless if you were playing multiplayer, where you only lose fairies if all players are down simultaneously, and that's ''extremely'' rare seeing how individually downed players will automatically revive themselves after about 10 seconds - no worse for wear. In fact, this actually makes even having ''health meters'' [[UpToEleven effectively meaningless]] in this game.
** Most Zelda games have a "Game Over" screen, which doesn't make you lose any progress; you just get sent to the nearest building or dungeon entrance as if you had saved and restarted. Many of them have ''inverted'' MeaninglessLives by keeping track of the number of "deaths" in a playthrough. Sometimes there's a bonus for playing the entire game without a Game Over, but this is easily accomplished by turning the game off instead of saving when you die.
* Attempted subversion in ''Gex: Enter the Gecko'', where running out of lives would erase all your progress and force you to start again. At least, that's the theory. The problem was that the game had to prompt the player to overwrite their save file, making it incredibly easy to avoid the punishment.
* ''[[VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay Conker: Live & Reloaded]]'' would reset your lives to 3 if you lost them all and chose to retry. You were thrown back to the previous checkpoint, but since literally every new room was a checkpoint this was not much of a penalty.

* ''[[VideoGame/YoshisIsland Yoshi's Island DS]]'' seems to make use of both this and NintendoHard. Sure, by the last world you'll lose 50 lives per level, but that doesn't matter because you get 70 1-Ups in the process.
* Many 3D platformers had this. ''VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay'' and ''SlyCooper'' (but only the first of the three) did this, as did a few Bugs Bunny licenced games like ''Lost in Time''.
* ''{{Banjo-Kazooie}}''. 1-Ups (Banjo trophies) are easy to find, and they reappear every time to return to their area (Spiral Mountain has two 1-Ups, for example). Of course, they serve little purpose, since if you lose all of your lives, you simply get sent back to the entrance to Gruntilda's Lair. However, death itself was far from a slap on the wrist. Upon death, all 100 notes in the level would be reset, meaning that the only way to get them all is to do it in one life (in the original version; the Xbox Live Arcade port changed this). ''Banjo-Tooie'' ditched the lives completely and made note collection much easier to boot.

* ''SonicUnleashed'' for the PS2/Wii does this one a little differently. You start with 2 retries, fair enough, but during the game you can get non-renewable 1up items that expand your stock on a permanent basis. Thus, you essentially have infinite lives; just a given number in any one stage. The 360/PS3 version is more in line with the trope, with extra lives lovingly scattered around the levels, many directly after checkpoints, all of which respawn when you die. Some of the Werehog sections, however, are so frustrating and so long, however, that those lives are far from meaningless.

* ''GhoulsAndGhosts'' (at least, the Genesis version) has infinite continues, making what was a near-impossible game merely really really hard.