History Main / MeaninglessLives

* Having the ability to use [[InfiniteOneUps cheap tricks to get many lives]] near the start of the game.

* Averted in the original ''VideoGame/{{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''.

** 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'': Getting a game over was only marginally more time consuming than losing a life (dying drops you at the level entrance, game overs kick you to the front of the castle). There was the occasional checkpoint now and then, but again, it didn't take long to reach them. It's not hard to get upwards of twenty lives in one sitting anyway, and the reward for getting 100% completion was [[AWinnerIsYou 99 of the bloody things]].

* ''[[VideoGame/YoshisIsland Yoshi's Island DS]]'' is a difficult game, but an actual GameOver is rare. 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.

* ''[[VideoGame/GhostsNGoblins Ghouls N Ghosts]]'' (at least, the Genesis version) has infinite continues, making what was a near-impossible game merely really really hard.

** ''Sonic Rush'' and its sequel, in modern 2D platformer fashion, still allow you to amass more lives than you'll ever need.
** ''Sonic the Hedgehog 4'' 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.
*** Be honest, is anyone ever going to use up over 400 freaking lives?
** ''Sonic 3 & Knuckles'' made lives even more pointless with the introduction of save files. Every time you complete a zone and reach a new zone, the game is saved, so you can quit and pick up where you left off later. The only danger a game over brings is booting you to the level's start instead of a checkpoint.

* ''VideoGame/FreedomPlanet2'' does whatever it can to avert this trope. While lives can come and go as any platformer-slash-action game is prone to, a feature in the game allows you to expend a life to resuscitate a character with their LastChanceHitPoint at the site of their "death", provided there is a body left behind. This could make the difference between "making the next checkpoint" or "beating the stage/boss" and "redoing the entire section since the last checkpoint".

This can be caused by the following, but not always:

** Downplayed in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosTheLostLevels'', as even though you can max out your life counter at 127-8 (depending on the version) in the first level, [[NintendoHard you can still easily lose them all before beating the game]]. Played straight in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioAllStars'', in which ''The 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.
** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' is a mild example, since two of the easiest spots to rack up InfiniteLives are in the first world. One is in the second level!

* ''VideoGame/{{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.

* ''Franchise/CrashBandicoot''

** ''Videogame/KirbyStarAllies takes this even further by saving your lives in between sessions, and point stars are everywhere. These two combined make it very hard to reach the end of the game without an extra life count in the triple digits, giving you effectively infinite lives.

%% ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.

** In the GBA ports of the ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' games, the player can save anywhere on the level select screen, restart from a level checkpoint at any time, and keep all lives when saving the game; all these features were absent in the original SNES versions, and they make lives largely pointless.

** Downplayed in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosTheLostLevels'', 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 ''VideoGame/SuperMarioAllStars'', in which ''The 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 any more 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 in fact, [[UpToEleven maxing out your life counter is needed to earn one of the stars on your save file!]]

** In ''Mario and Wario'', a Japan-only Mario puzzler controlled with the SNES mouse, you can play the initial 8 worlds in any order and continue an infinite amount of times if you run out of lives. However, you still need to replay all the levels for any given world if you run out of lives and you need to beat last 2 normally unselectable worlds with a single set of lives.

* ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'' likewise has lives, 1-up pickups, and score that gives you lives in a first-person shooter where you can save at any point. Apparently, Id Software needed time to shake off the platform game conventions while working on the predecessor of today's FPS's.

* ''MonsterBash'' may not save your exact location in a level, but it still invokes this trope via the easy-to-remember cheat code in the registered version for full lives. Of course, considering the DifficultySpike in the registered episodes, anyone who has finished this game will almost certainly have used the cheat a few times. Especially on [[ThatOneLevel the swamp levels in episode 3]].

* Averted in ''VideoGame/MediEvil'', where your "lives" are Life Bottles - extra life bars. Dying causes you to empty one, and if your health bar is full when you get a health pick-up, it overflows into any empty Life Bottles. Kind of like a succession of renewable Zelda fairy bottles, or the reserve tanks from ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'', or the sub-tanks from ''VideoGame/MegaManX'', ''[[VideoGame/MegaManZero Zero]]'', and ''[[VideoGame/MegaManZX ZX]]''.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/MediEvil'', where your "lives" are Life Bottles - extra life bars. Dying causes you to empty one, and if your health bar is full when you get a health pick-up, it overflows into any empty Life Bottles. Kind of like a succession of renewable Zelda fairy bottles.
** Or the reserve tanks from ''VideoGame/SuperMetroid'', or the sub-tanks from ''VideoGame/MegaManX'', ''[[VideoGame/MegaManZero Zero]]'', and ''[[VideoGame/MegaManZX ZX]]''.

* The VideoGame/LEGOAdaptationGame series gives you four hearts. When you get hit four times or fall into any pit you die and respawn exactly where you were and at worst lose a tenth of your money/studs.

** 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 in fact, [[UpToEleven maxing out your life counter is needed to earn one of the stars on your save file!]]

** In ''Mario and Wario'', a Japan only Mario puzzler controlled with the SNES mouse, you can play the initial 8 worlds in any order and continue an infinite amount of times if you run out of lives. However, you still need to replay all the levels for any given world if you run out of lives and you need to beat last 2 normally unselectable worlds with a single set of lives.

* ''Videogame/BanjoKazooie'': 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). ''Videogame/BanjoTooie'' ditched the lives completely and made note collection much easier to boot.

* ''SpyroTheDragon'' has a fantastically superfluous bonus life system. In addition to a rather generous number of bonus lives scattered around as loot, you also get small orbs whenever you defeat an enemy you've already beaten. Ten of these makes a bonus life. Oh, and if that's not easy enough, sometimes an enemy will drop a full extra life instead of an orb. On the other hand, you might need them, depending how good you are at the game's jumping puzzles...

* The LEGOAdaptationGame series gives you four hearts. When you get hit four times or fall into any pit you die and respawn exactly where you were and at worst lose a tenth of your money/studs.

** ''VideoGame/NewSuperMarioBrosWii'' and ''U'' have over a dozen intentional ways to get infinite (or high numbers of) 1-ups, and in ''Wii'' 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 Super Guide block pop up which means your file can [[LostForever never]] have shiny stars. Also, in multiplayer there isn't time to collect as many 1-Ups unless everyone cooperates, and running out means you need to sit out the level until it's completed or everyone dies.
** ''VideoGame/SuperMario3DLand'' does things similarly to ''New Super Mario Bros. Wii'', having a fairly easy infinite-life trick in the ''second level of the game''. The game even rewards you for finding the trick by letting you get over the normal maximum number of lives. Just as in ''New Super Mario Bros. Wii'' however, losing too many lives in a row causes the game to [[MercyMode give you help]] and [[LostForever take away]] your BraggingRightsReward of shiny stars.

* Having a game that is [[SoEasyItSucks really, really, really easy]].

* Having a game that is really, really, really easy.

* In the GBA ports of the ''VideoGame/DonkeyKongCountry'' games, the player can save anywhere on the level select screen, restart from a level checkpoint at any time, and keep all lives when saving the game; all these features were absent in the original SNES versions, and they make lives largely pointless.

* Lives are not quite as meaningless in the original ''Videogame/CrashBandicoot1996'' as they are in future installments. Loading the game or using a password resets your lives to 5, and [[NintendoHard you're going to need as many as you can get]]. However, collecting the green gem opens a shortcut in the level "Castle Machinery", which will take you to the exit in 10 seconds and give you '''25 extra lives'''.

* ''Videogame/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.