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9[[quoteright:350:[[VideoGame/{{Iconoclasts}} https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/iconoclastshurtfinal3.png]]]]
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11A meter, usually a colored bar, that displays the HitPoints of a character. If this shrinks to nothing, CriticalExistenceFailure is the result.
12
13In single-character games, this is found on the {{HUD}}. In strategy games, this appears next to selected units, often over their heads, and by their portraits in the {{HUD}}. Sometimes, they are invisible most of the time, only appearing for a moment whenever your character loses or gains health.
14
15The color of the life meter is often determined as a major stylistic point for the game. Red is a very common color, being strongly associated with blood and flesh, as well as the ubiquitous red-crossed [[HealThyself health packs]].[[note]]Though the latter has declined in recent games due to UsefulNotes/{{the Red Cross}} asserting that it undermines their symbol's internationally protected status.[[/note]] SciFi life meters often change color as health declines, from green, to yellow, and down to red. Other colors usually indicate something unique about the character or game. The life meter may also change color to reflect status ailments, such as poisoning. An alternate menu may note how many HitPoints that meter reflects. Fantasy games tend not to have the meter change color, and will instead have it remain a blue or green color. It may flash red when the PC reaches a critical threshold.
16
17A Life Meter may also be made of a line of symbols rather than a bar. Frequently, [[HeartsAreHealth hearts are used for this purpose]]. Some games may even use a "life counter" with numbers instead.
18
19Bosses, especially a DamageSpongeBoss, will usually have a layered meter that has to be depleted several times, often changing color as each one goes down.
20
21If your life meter [[CriticalAnnoyance also comes with an alarm sound to indicate low health]], that alarm will likely be annoying. The life meter may also have [[ExpressiveHealthBar an animation instead of, or as well as, the alarm]].
22
23Gaining more hit points, such as through leveling up or a HeartContainer, may show up on the meter. For example, if the meter is a bar, a Heart Container might make it longer, or if the meter is made of icons, increase the amount of said icons. [[BreadEggsBreadedEggs Or it might add an icon that represents an extra life meter on top.]]
24
25Running out can either lead to a GameOver, or simply losing one of the VideoGameLives.
26
27HitPoints are the supertrope of this trope, but will usually occur in tandem with this, so long as there's a numerical indicator as well. It only would not, if this trope were the only measure of HitPoints, and if so, that's VagueHitPoints, usually. Because HitPoints still exist. Unless they don't. This also has a sister trope in ManaMeter, which is the equivalent for {{Mana}}.
28
29SubTrope of StatusLine (a display element showing the current disposition of the player, e.g. score, health, ammo, etc).
30----
31!!Video Game Examples:
32[[foldercontrol]]
33
34[[folder:Video Games]]
35* ''VideoGame/SixTwoFiveSandwichStacker'' inverts this with the "ick-meter", which players need to ''avoid'' filling up. Players get one bar (out of three) filled in the ick-meter every time they catch an inedible item; if it's fully filled up, it's game over.
36* ''Franchise/AceAttorney'':
37** All of the games, save for the first and sixth ones, use a life meter to determine the judge's patience with you. Screwing up costs you some life and an empty bar results in a guilty verdict/Game Over. Some screw-ups can [[OneHitKill cost you your entire life bar]] and sometimes a character in the courtroom wants to up the ante by '''increasing''' your possible penalty (life bar loss). They are also used in the Magatama segments, where it's implied that they show Phoenix's soul state. (If you empty it Pearl says you should stop before your soul shatters, and if you finish the sequence you regain energy.)
38** [[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorney The first game]] has five "Exclamation Marks" with 1 being removed when Penalized, and 2 when Double Penalized. Later entries have a Green Bar with a very dark red background, likely to allow penalties to have varying strength. ''[[VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneySpiritOfJustice Spirit of Justice]]'' brings back this system, with the exclamation marks replaced with attorney's badges (in America/Japan) or magatamas (in Khura'in). ''VisualNovel/TheGreatAceAttorney Chronicles'' also has this system in the form of white star logos from ''Ace Attorney'' titles.
39** Oddly, in ''Justice For All'', how well you did in court affects how much health you have in your Magatama investigations, and every time you start the trial the next day, your health is full again. However, during the last case, your Magatama health is restored in the middle of your investigation... but doesn't recover when you go to court the next day. Considering how troubling the last investigation segment is, you're likely only going to have a smidge-higher than half health, making almost all mistakes fatal.
40** In ''Trials and Tribulations'', the Magatama meter is totally separate from the court meter (though the graphics do not reflect this). Meaning, in JFA, if you had 80% life at the end of an investigation, you'd start off the court session with 80%. In T&T, if you ended the first-day investigation with 80%, you will not start Day 2 Trial with 80%, but with a full health bar. Only mistakes and health on its own section carries over to the next respective session. Taking the T&T example, if you ended the first-day Investigation with 80% HP, you will start off the Magatama session in Day 2 Investigation with 80% health. Same goes for trial sessions.
41* In ''VideoGame/AladdinVirginGames'', depending on the platform, Aladdin's health is measured by a trail of smoke coming out of the lamp in the top left corner of the screen--or by a hourglass with sand being drained, accompanied by an increasingly nervous face of the Genie.
42* ''VideoGame/TheAngryVideoGameNerdAdventures'' and [[VideoGame/TheAngryVideoGameNerdIIAssimilation its sequel]] measure the Nerd's health in beer bottles.
43* ''VideoGame/ANNOMutationem'': The Life Meter is displayed on the top-left showing the health total in a red bar.
44* In ''VideoGame/{{Astal}}'', Astal's HitPoints are represented by fruit.
45* OlderThanTheNES: [[Creator/{{Rare}} Ultimate's]] ''VideoGame/AticAtac'' featured a graphic of a chicken, which decreased down to bare bones as you lost energy. (Eating food replenished it.)
46* ''VideoGame/AwayJourneyToTheUnexpected'':
47** The PlayerCharacter's life meter is located in the top left corner of the screen, and represented by three hearts.
48** Enemies have their life meters located above them.
49* ''VideoGame/AyoTheClown'': In the top left corner of the screen is a line of hearts that serves as [[PlayerCharacter Ayo]]'s health.
50* In the old ''Batman: The Movie'', the Life Meter is Franchise/{{Batman}}'s face, gradually replaced by the Joker's face as the hero receives damage.
51* ''VideoGame/BillyBladeAndTheTempleOfTime'': Located in the top-left corner of the screen, the life bar is the square with the red colour to the right of [[PlayerCharacter Billy]]'s mugshot.
52* All the ''Videogame/BioShock'' games have them, with the symbol varying - in the first two, it's a cross; in ''Videogame/BioShockInfinite'', [[HeartsAreHealth a heart]].
53* ''VisualNovel/BlackCloset'' has two different "life" meters, one representing the student body's trust in the student council, and one representing the school's reputation. If either meter reaches zero, you will be expelled.
54* The first ''VideoGame/BlakeStone'' game (''Aliens of Gold'') has a percentage meter and an EKG graph which changes faster if the player character has less health. This is accompanied by a heartbeat sound effect (which can be toggled on/off) which also is played the more frequently the less health the hero has. The second game (''Planet Strike'') only has a percentage meter.
55* ''VideoGame/BornUnderTheRain'': As shown in [[https://rpgmaker.net/games/7360/images/55009/ this official screenshot]] of a battle, HitPoints are represented numerically where the current number of them is at the right of a green bar.
56* ''VideoGame/BotGaiden'': [[PlayerCharacter Botyu and Bytron]] have their health bars on the top-left corner of the screen, the the boss' is on the top-right side.
57* ''VideoGame/{{Bug|1995}}'' has a can of "Bug Juice". Taking damage greys out a fraction of it, and when it becomes depleted, Bug dies and the can "melts". The sequel ''Bug Too!'' had a glass bottle of Bug Juice instead, the amount inside depended on your character's current health.
58* Unusually for a FightingGame, ''VideoGame/BushidoBlade'' and its sequel ''Bushido Blade 2'', have no life gauges whatsoever. You can be killed with a single blow.
59* ''VideoGame/TheCallistoProtocol'' has one in the form of a blinking implant on the back of Jacob's neck, which drains and changes color as he loses health.
60* Most ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' games have one for the player character, either as hearts or as a bar. Older games had one for bosses too.
61* ''[[VideoGame/CatacombFantasyTrilogy Catacomb 3-D]]'' has a human face which is slowly replaced, from the bottom up, by an image of a skull.
62* ''VideoGame/ClunkyHero'': Located in the top-left corner of the screen, it's the red bar.
63* In ''VideoGame/{{Colobot}}'', all units have a yellow life meter, including the human character, the robots and the buildings. The human is able to regenerate on his own, but robots need to use a special building to be repaired, and buildings cannot be repaired at all.
64* In ''VideoGame/TheConduit'', not only does the life meter change from green to flashing red when the player's life meter is low, but the game also desaturates the colors and turns down ambient sounds when the player is low on life. This is needed because it is possible to play the game without a HUD (thus hiding the regular life meter all together).
65* ''VideoGame/{{Conjoined}}'': In the bottom-left corner of the screen are four hearts that represent [[PlayerCharacter Stanley]]'s health.
66* The early ''VideoGame/CrashBandicoot'' games, and some of the new ones, feature a hovering mask pickup instead of the dragonfly. Pick up a mask, and you can take an extra hit. Pick up two, and your mask turns golden, meaning you can take two hits. Pick up a third one, and you're invincible for a short while.
67* ''VideoGame/CrossbowCrusade'': The PlayerCharacter's health bar is in the top-left corner of the screen, with various displays for weapons, money, and ticket.
68* ''Franchise/DeadSpace'': It's InUniverse and {{Justified|Trope}}. Every adult has a device called a RIG attached to them. One of a RIG's main features is a spine-mounted bar that scans the user's body and gauges their overall health.
69* ''Franchise/{{Danganronpa}}'' utilizes a life bar indicating how much chances each protagonists get to present the correct information otherwise depleting the bar will result in them being [[YouLoseAtZeroTrust dismissed]].
70* In ''VideoGame/{{Dex}}'', all enemies have a red bar below their sprite displaying their health, and there's also a percentage just to the right of it doing the same.
71* ''VideoGame/{{Destiny}}'' and ''VideoGame/Destiny2'' inherit the regenerating health/shields system used in Bungie's ''Halo'' titles (see below), though with the added spin of players' stats determining how quickly one refills back to full (Recovery) and how much damage one can take before dying (called Armor in ''D1'' and Resilience in ''D2''). Visually, both games keep things simple: the bar stays white until one's shields are drained, with the last health segment turning red until regen starts. (Overshielding is represented in blue.)
72* In ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'':
73** The first game has a globe filled with red liquid, the same color as the life potions. The color changes to green if the character is poisoned.
74** Also, in ''VideoGame/DiabloII'', the globe is held up by a little demon statue, characters turn green when poisoned, and other things (gas, throwing potions, damage stats) are [[ColorCodedForYourConvenience green when they relate to poison]].
75** The same color convention -- red changing to green when poisoned -- was later used in ''Videogame/{{Nox}}''.
76** And a similar convention and life meter was used in the first ''VideoGame/LegacyOfKain'' although in this case, it's fairly clear what the liquid is supposed to be, since he's a vampire and all.
77* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfTianding'' depicts your health as six white bars, and getting hit turns one red. When all goes red you lose a life.
78* The ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}'' games combined a percentile health meter with a central character face portrait that got progressively more bloody as your health decreased.
79** Same deal with ''VideoGame/Wolfenstein3D'', the ''VideoGame/{{Catacomb|FantasyTrilogy}}'' games (the sequels to the original ''Catacomb 3D''), and ''VideoGame/IonFury'' (the latter puts Bombshell’s face in the lower left corner).
80** And with ''VideoGame/Nitemare3D'', but rather than getting bloody, the skin wore away like in ''Series/{{Knightmare}}''. You'd be down to a skull when you were on your last 10% health, and when you died, the skull went dark.
81* The Platform/{{NES}} {{port|ingDisaster}} of ''Videogame/DragonsLair'' infamously gives you a life bar but almost everything is instant death.
82* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestVIII'': Party members have a health bar and an HP counter (e.g. [=200/350=]). Their character models will also change if their health is very low. However, none of this applies to enemies -- there is no way of telling if they have 1 HP or 1000.
83* ''VideoGame/DungeonsOfDaggorath'' for the Platform/ColorComputer had no visual indicator of the player's health, just a heartbeat sound that would quicken as the player got closer to death.
84* The ''[[VideoGame/{{Mother}} EarthBound Series]]'' shows HP as numbers on tumblers, like they were on a mechanical counter. Taking damage or being healed doesn't take full effect immediately, it sends the tumblers rolling towards their new values. Characters who take mortal damage don't die until their HP rolls down to 0, and they can be kept standing by healing them before it does. The characters' stats even affect how fast their tumblers roll, and using the Guard command slows down the drop.
85* ''VideoGame/EchoNight: Beyond'' uses an EKG monitor; Richard's heartrate jumps whenever he encounters ghosts, but will even out if the ghost is friendly. ''Hostile'' ghosts, on the other hand, along with other disturbing phenomena, can push his heartrate up much higher... Reaching 300+ immediately kills him.
86* ''VideoGame/EccoTheDolphin'' has a life meter and a breath meter. Eating fish restores the life meter. Surfacing instantly fills the breath meter but pushing Ecco’s head into an underwater air bubble takes a few seconds to fill the meter and leaves Ecco more vulnerable. There are also certain clams that will heal Ecco but some will hurt him instead.
87* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsOnline'' has three bars for [[SprintMeter stamina]], [[HitPoints health]] and [[{{mana}} magicka]]. The health bar in particular is one of your visual cues for understanding your current buffs and debuffs. For example, it will crack when your resistances are lowered, it will glow white when your damage is buffed or its borders will thicken if your resistances get buffed. The bar also shows shields applied on you by dyeing a part of your bar in pink.
88* ''VideoGame/{{Eldervale}}'': The health meter is in the top left corner of the screen whenever you bring the inventory up. It takes the form of an [=IV=] Unit line a la ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'', with a number next to it indicating how much health remains.
89* The second ''VideoGame/{{Elvira}}'' game has a unique take on health meters in the form of an indicator representing the "health" of your head, torso, and each arm and leg. Losing all HP for a leg will hamper your mobility, while losing all HP for an arm reduces your carrying capacity. Losing all HP for your head and[=/=]or torso results in your grisly demise, as does losing all HP for both arms and both legs.
90* ''VideoGame/EpicBattleFantasy'' series:
91** The mainline games place player healthbars in the bottom-left of the screen, with enemy healthbars at the bottom-right. With the [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness exception]] of the first game, enemy health is displayed at all times during battle.
92** The spinoffs universally make use of HeartsAreHealth:
93*** ''VideoGame/AdventureStory'' uses a single heart to represent Matt's health, and a bar across the top of the screen to represent a boss's health.
94*** ''VideoGame/BulletHeaven'' also uses a single heart, whilst ''VideoGame/BulletHeaven2'' uses a row of them.
95* ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'' features a SanityMeter, an affectation borrowed from Lovecraft-inspired role playing games. It effectively acts as a second Life Meter (shocking but not physically harmful experiences deplete it, and physical damage occurs when it is fully depleted), but is also tied to the game's "insanity effects", where unexpected visuals, such as insects crawling across the screen, would simulate the player's decline into insanity. Of course, after finishing such mentally stressing levels, a HeroicBSOD (as opposed to an actual BSOD, which is one of the insanity effects) is expected from most characters.
96* ''VideoGame/EternalSenia'': Multiple games, for the protagonist, Senia:
97** The first game, ''VideoGame/EternalSenia1'', has it as a red bar at the top left of the screen, with the precise number of HitPoints being above that bar.
98** ''VideoGame/EternalSeniaHydrangeaAfterTheRain'': Multiple, for both enemies and the Senia.
99*** Senia's is displayed at the bottom left.
100*** The current enemy's is displayed at the top of the screen.
101* In ''Videogame/{{Evolve}}'', the hunter's health is show as a bar to the left of their screen. Portions of it will be greyed out as you take strikes, reducing your maximum health. Other hunters' health can be seen above their heads and the monster's health is a bar at the top of the screen, regardless of side.
102* The ''VideoGame/FairyBloom'' series: Due to {{Protection Mission}}s, mainly:
103** ''VideoGame/FairyBloom1'': At the bottom of the screen, measuring the health of the plant being protected.
104** ''VideoGame/FairyBloomFreesia'': Multiple, measuring the health of different things:
105*** At the bottom of the screen when a Vortex needs to be protected.
106*** At the top left at all times, measuring Freesia's health.
107* ''VideoGame/FightingForce'' Has not only the life meter of the player in the HUD but also that of the most immediate enemy the player is facing.
108* In ''VideoGame/{{Flink}}'', Flink's life meter is the big red bottle in the corner of the screen, labeled "MAGIC" since it doubles as his MagicMeter.
109* ''VideoGame/{{Flow}}'': Attacking enemies is by eating round chunks of their body, and once they're all eaten, the enemy dies, so the game basically involves attacking the HitPoints-representation directly, a.k.a attacking this meter.
110* ''VideoGame/FlynnSonOfCrimson'': In the top left corner of the screen is a picture of Flynn. Next to it is a line of light cyan jewels that serve this purpose.
111* All of Creator/FromSoftware’s Souls/Soulslike games have life meters denoting the main character’s health, including ''VideoGame/DemonsSouls'', ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'', ''VideoGame/DarkSouls2'', ''VideoGame/DarkSouls3'', ''VideoGame/{{Bloodborne}}'', ''VideoGame/SekiroShadowsDieTwice'' and ''VideoGame/EldenRing''. Though regular enemies also have health bars, more notable are the large, prominent ones given to its bosses.
112* ''VideoGame/FlippinKaktus'': The health bar is located in the top left corner of the screen, and is represented by a line of squares.
113* ''VideoGame/{{Furwind}}'': The PlayerCharacter's health bar, located in the top left corner of the screen, is represented by a row of red bars next to a heart.
114* In ''ComicStrip/{{Garfield}} and his Nine Lives'', Garfield's health is represented by [[TrademarkFavoriteFood lasagna]].
115* ''VideoGame/{{Germination}}'': Shaped like a flower.
116* ''VideoGame/GenpeiToumaDen'' has a row of burning candles to represent Kagekiyo's life meter. When his health gets low, a voice sample in Japanese can be heard that says "Like a candle, your life flickers in the wind!".
117* ''VideoGame/GingerBeyondTheCrystal'': Located in the top left corner of the screen, the health meter is represented by a branch with blue leaves on it. Each leaf represents two hit points.
118* In the Brazilian game ''[[http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/guimo/screenshots Guimo]]'', the life meter is a pair of eyes, that get bloodshot with every hit (when they're completely red, the player dies).
119* ''VideoGame/GuitarHero'' and ''VideoGame/RockBand'' play with this by having a "Rock Meter" (Guitar Hero) or "Crowd Meter" (Rock Band) that tells you how much the crowd is liking your performance; it increases with notes hit and decreases with notes missed. While not technically a "life meter" per se, it serves the same purpose; if the meter hits bottom, you fail out of the song and either must restart it or must be saved by a bandmate, depending on the situation.
120** ''VideoGame/RockBand'''s crowd meter isn't a straight life meter in multiplayer, either -- if the meter itself hits bottom, the entire band fails out automatically. However, each member has a slider on the meter, and if a member's slider hits bottom, they fail out, and the meter starts being drained until all failed members are recovered. The amount of the meter that is filled is around the average of the band member's positions on the meter.
121* In ''VideoGame/{{Gungrave}}'', your character has two meters--a red bar for his vitality and a blue bar for his regenerating shield. The shield will recover if Grave takes no hits for a few moments, however, explosions and some boss attacks will break the shield completely. Once his shield is gone he will lose his health rapidly, and will fall if the red bar reaches zero.
122* ''VideoGame/{{HAAK}}'': Located in the top-left corner of the screen, it looks like a bunch of orange circles connected by orange lines.
123* ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'':
124** ''VideoGame/Halo2'', ''VideoGame/Halo3'', and ''VideoGame/Halo4'' have no Life Meter per se. Instead, there's a meter for your energy shield. When it reaches zero, your now-unseen health bar can be diminished, obviously enough hits on you after the shield bar is depleted will result in your death. However, if not hit in a set amount of time, your health and shields will regenerate, the shield bar filling up again (Interestingly enough, Master Chief's health regenerates slower than his shields in ''Halo 3'', meaning that if his health is low enough, but his shields have fully regenerated and were promptly depleted, he'd still have very low health. See the [[WordOfGod word of Bungie]] [[http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=13233 here,]] under the OMG Fix Mayleeey, Bungle! section, sub-section The Nitty Gritty).
125** The original ''VideoGame/HaloCombatEvolved'' has the energy shield in addition to a traditional Life Meter. Master Chief's health only drops once his shield runs out, and health can only be restored by [[HealThyself medkits]] scattered around. ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' also reverts to this setup, being a {{Prequel}} to the other FPS games, and only differs in that the medkits tend to be mounted on walls rather than lying on the floor, as well as the Life Meter having very minor regeneration at certain levels of injury.
126** In ''VideoGame/Halo3ODST'', your non-recharging heath has a meter, but this game's version of energy shields (referred to as "Stamina") has no meter; your screen just starts turning red when it starts to deplete.
127** In ''VideoGame/Halo5Guardians'', your shields and health go back to having separate meters, but both of them still recharge. This system comes back effectively unchanged for ''[[VideoGame/HaloInfinite Infinite]]''.
128* ''VideoGame/HelensMysteriousCastle'': Enemies have them, that decrease when damage is taken, but it's ungradated, but they also ShowsDamage numbers, so an estimate of their actual number of HitPoints can be made.
129* In ''VideoGame/{{Hellsinker}}'', enemies that don't die in one hit and bosses have percentages displayed over them when their health falls below 70%. Certain bosses feature a health bar alongside their percentage.
130** The pre-FinalBoss, Unnamed 290, inverts this: it has a "Satisfaction Gauge" that starts ''empty'' and needs to be ''filled'' to at least Level 1 before [[TimeLimitBoss time runs out]] by shooting it.
131** Inverted again with the Level 3 FinalBoss, Garland. It starts with an empty boss meter that is filled up by shooting Garland. If the meter is filled and the "Did you forget something?" dialogue triggers before the time limit runs out, the game moves on to the TrueFinalBoss; otherwise the game just ends there.
132* ''VideoGame/{{Heretic}}'' had a numerical life meter, but also a red gem on a chain that moved from right to left as health decreased. This interface was carried over to the first ''{{Videogame/Hexen}}'' game as well.
133* In ''VideoGame/{{Ib}}'', the characters carry around colored roses that are tied to their life force and appear in your inventory. A number in the corner of the screen indicates how many hit points they have left. The more damage they take, the more the rose wilts. If your rose becomes a bare stalk, it's Game Over.
134** As a twist, the connection also works in reverse - rejuvenating a rose in water will heal its owner, and directly damaging it (by plucking out petals, for instance) will harm them.
135* ''VideoGame/{{Illbleed}}'' has three different life meters. In addition to your regular strength meter (you die when it runs out, natch), you also have a heart rate monitor and a bleeding gauge that appears when you take damage. If your bleeding gauge becomes full, you die by bleeding out. If your heart rate exceeds 250 as a result of [[JumpScare Jump Scares]], you die of a fear-induced heart attack. If your bleeding gauge fills past a certain point, your heart rate will begin to decline; if it reaches 0, you flatline.
136* ''VideoGame/IncredibleCrisis'' uses a Panic Meter shaped in the image of the game's head logo, which acts as various different things, including a Health Meter in the case of some of the minigames. It also serves as a Lives Counter, with the number in the Panic Meter showing how many lives you have remaining. Unlike other examples, the more red it is filled up as, the closer the player is to failing, along with the [[CriticalAnnoyance sound of steam when the bar is getting close to filled]] - and if the Panic Meter changes to the logo with a high pitche steam sound, that means that you are only one mistake (or moments) away from losing a life.
137* ''VideoGame/IndianaJonesAndHisDesktopAdventures'' has a circle-shaped life meter, initially completely green. As you receive damage, the circle loses more and more "slices" (like a pie graph), gradually turning yellow. Once it's completely yellow, the yellow begins to peel away in the same way, revealing red. Then, once it's all red, it begins giving way to black. Once it's all black, guess what happens.
138* ''VideoGame/InexistenceRebirth'': In the top left corner of the screen is a health bar, accompanied by the magic bar and experience bar.
139* In ''VideoGame/JazzJackrabbit'', the playable characters have a colourful bar which changes colour depending on how much health he has left (blue is full health, glowing red is when it's about to lose a life if takes one more damag) in the first game. In the second game, it's represented by hearts (5 hearts means full health and every damage he gets makes him lose one).
140* ''VideoGame/TheJungleBook'': Mowgli has one, and so do all the bosses. In most versions of the game, the bar is an image of the characters head, of which the color slowly drains every time they take a hit. In the NES version, it's a red heart that slowly drains of color whenever a character takes a hit.
141* In ''VideoGame/JurassicParkTrespasser'', there is no HUD; your health is instead displayed by glancing down at a heart-shaped tattoo on your left breast (a rare example of a [[ThirdPersonSeductress First Person Seductress]]).
142* While ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII'' and all following games use a green bar with green squares underneath representing the amount of health bars left for enemies, ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsI'' and the GBA game ''Chain of Memories'' use colored, multi layered health bars. This is kind of a problem in [=KH1=] with [[{{Superboss}} Sephiroth]], as he has so much health the developers ran out of colors to use, so he has all the normal colors up to purple and an additional invisible bar.
143** While playing as the main protagonist, their face is shown in the middle of the HP Circle with a healthy expression. Whenever they take damage, the face temporarily changes to a [[FlashofPain flinch]] before reverting back again. However if the protagonist hits [[CriticalAnnoyance Low HP]], the character's portrait will remain in a gloomy pained expression until their health is restored.
144** In the case of the player and their party, the health bar circles around and over their portrait, then straightens out once it passes below it (Games past the first simplify the party member HP into a half circle).
145* The above was directly lifted for the classic kid's TV show ''Series/{{Knightmare}}'', except that it was a human face instead of a skeleton and the skeleton would eventually also disintegrate away into nothing. That one also used green to yellow to red backgrounds as a more general measure.
146* In ''VideoGame/{{Kolibri}}'', the life meter takes the form of up to five miniature hummingbirds circling Kolibri. It only appears when he either heals or takes a hit.
147* ''LastNinja'' uses a bar, but twisted into a spiral.
148* ''VideoGame/LegendOfSuccessJoe'' gave the player a three-part life bar; half-empty bars would refill between stages but not fully empty ones.
149* ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' games, with the notable exception of ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'' which uses a bar meter, use a heart system in place of a regular life meter. Link starts most games with three hearts. Unlike most games, he can acquire more by locating a HeartContainer; the more of these he gets, the longer his string of hearts becomes and, therefore, allows him to take significantly greater damage before dying. Early versions of ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOcarinaOfTime'' had the color of Link's tunic and shield change to indicate his health. Of course, the final version just used collections of hearts like previous titles.
150* ''VideoGame/TheLegendsOfOwlia'': In the top left corner of the screen, represented by a line of hearts.
151* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' uses a health meter like most other Valve games. What sets it apart from other games is that as your health decreases, your mobility because more compromised: you start off able to run at a brisk pace, but as you sustain damage, your movement speed decreases until your left with a limp barely faster than walking. Pain pills can grant a temporary boost in health, as can adrenaline shots (not as much health, but it increases your movement speed back to normal for a while), but the only way to actually recover health is by using medkits, which are far and few between.
152* ''VideoGame/LiEat'': The first game has these for the party in the party menu and in battle, along with Current / Max HitPoints, while enemies only get the latter.
153* ''VideoGame/{{Lugaru}}: The Rabbit's Foot'' has no HUD, but Life Meters for two types of damage which affect the same pool of HitPoints: Temporary damage, caused by blunt impact, is indicated by the character limping and the camera's view becoming blurry and shaky, it fades with time. Permanent damage, caused by cuts and stabs, which is only healed between levels, has the additional indication of pain skins (visible wound texturemaps).
154* ''VideoGame/LuxarenAllure'': HP is depicted with a green bar that depletes from right to left.
155* The ''Madou Monogatari'' [=RPGs=] for the Platform/{{MSX}}2, Platform/GameGear and Platform/PC98 did the furthest to avert conventional analog or digital representations of the player character's health, which is represented instead by changing facial expressions.
156* ''VideoGame/Madman2022'': Located in the bottom-left corner of the item menu screen is the health meter, which is a picture of a heart with a percentage number next to it. [[LawOf100 100% is full health.]]
157* ''Mad Professor Mariarti'', in his namesake game, has a bubbling flask in the status display which drains as the professor's health is damaged.
158* ''VideoGame/MadStalkerFullMetalForce'' has its life meters represented by energy bars that changes from green to red to empty as the player(s) take damage.
159* ''VideoGame/MarvelVsCapcom3'' combines this with NinjaProp when one of Deadpool's Hyper Combos has him attack his opponent with both his health bar and hyper combo meter.
160-->'''Deadpool''': HEALTH BAR IN YOUR FACE!
161* ''VideoGame/TheMatrixPathOfNeo'' just like in ''VideoGame/EnterTheMatrix'' the lifebar is represented in a darker shade of the Matrix's code.
162* Many ''Franchise/MegaMan'' games feature bosses that strike a cool pose whilst their life meter fills up before they fight.
163* ''VideoGame/MegaManLegends'' features a yellow health bar, as well as a "life shield". When the shield is active (the health bar's background is black), taking a hit will disrupt it, causing the health bar to glow red. Any attacks received before the shield can repair itself will hurt more than usual. If the shield is disrupted too many times (or if Mega Man takes a really heavy blow), it will "break" and won't regenerate until you use a shield repair item. The sequel just deals damage normally.
164* ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' has a standard life bar that extends as the player progress (for the first few games in the series). Starting with ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', boss characters would also a life bar displayed. Played with by The Sorrow in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'' whose life bar is completely empty since he's a ghost, thus has no life left anyway.
165* ''VideoGame/MetallicChild'': [[PlayerCharacter Rona]]'s health bar is a red one located in the top left corner of the screen.
166* In ''Franchise/{{Metroid}}'', Samus Aran always begins with 99 points of energy, usually displayed as a simple white meter on the HUD, and adds 100 more points with each [[HeartContainer Energy Tank]] she finds, displayed as boxes above the meter.
167* ''VideoGame/MightyAphid'': The life bar is located in the top left corner of the screen. It also comes with a gem counter.
168* In ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' (SNES), the lifebar seems to max out when it's green and full, but if you collect more health refills at that point it will change to blue and eventually purple to indicate additional health.
169* ''VideoGame/MinecraftDungeons'': The heart-shaped one in the center of your HUD.
170* ''VideoGame/MintyFreshAdventure'' and ''VideoGame/FreshMintyAdventure'': Using HeartSymbol-type HeartsAreHealth, at the bottom of the screen.
171* ''VideoGame/MoonRaider'': [[PlayerCharacter Ava]]'s health meter is located in the top left corner of the screen.
172* ''VideoGame/{{Muri}}'': HitPoints are called Energy, and displayed in green on the right side of the screen.
173* ''VideoGame/{{Nightfire}}'' features an interesting design for the life meter: it's based on the James Bond Gunbarrel. As you start to lose life points, the damage eats away at the barrel, wedge by wedge, as the remaining wedges change from green to yellow to red. After the last sliver falls, the "game over" screen is represented by blood pouring down from the top of the screen.
174** If only in the PC version, armor is used in the place of healthkits, with simple armor plates restoring two or three wedges and a bulletproof vest restoring the entire meter. So perhaps the wedges signify undamaged armor plates, and Bond uses BodyArmorAsHitPoints?
175* The ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden'' franchise represents Ryu Hayabusa's health with a life bar. In the NES games, the life bar is presented Franchise/{{Castlevania}}-style, showing sixteen hit points for Ryu as well as each level boss throughout the game.
176* ''VideoGame/NinjaOutbreak'': Your health bar has four green points. You lose one for each hit you take.
177* ''VideoGame/NinjishGuyInLowResWorld'': At the bottom of the screen is a line of hearts that make up the PlayerCharacter's health. For each heart you lose, you have to start over at the beginning of the level.
178* ''VideoGame/NoMoreHeroes'' has Travis' health represented by an 8-bit heart, with each "pixel" being a unit of health (though if his health is upgraded, some of the pixels change color to represent more than one health unit.) Enemy life meters are a ring of "pixels" around the enemy, with each pixel getting smaller in a clockwise pattern as the enemy takes damage.
179* ''VideoGame/NomolosStormingTheCatsle'': In the top left corner of the screen is a line of hearts that act as [[PlayerCharacter Nomolos]]' health.
180* ''VideoGame/{{Observo}}'': Located in the pause menu is an [=EKG=] meter like in the ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' games before [[VideoGame/ResidentEvil4 the fourth]]. Appropo, the game being a love letter to early 2000s-era SurvivalHorror video games.
181* ''VideoGame/OkikuStarApprentice'': Shown in the battle screens and menus, depicted by an orange/yellow bar. Shows HitPoints as Current / Max.
182* ''VideoGame/OperationFlashpoint'' has no life meter; to determine the extent of your injuries, you simply check your body for wounds. Any wound to a vital area has a good chance of [[OneHitKill killing you outright]], and wounds to the limbs affect your movement and accuracy. Though there aren't any health packs as such, you can get the wound treated by a medic if you can find one.
183* ''VideoGame/OracleOfAskigaga'': In the main menu, party members' HitPoints and Stamina a.k.a ManaPoints, are shown as both numbers, and orange and blue bars, respectively.
184* ''VideoGame/Pandemonium1996'' uses the classic HeartContainer life meter. The sequel uses 4-segment discs, that can be layered by health expansions. However, during ''Hate Tank'' level the Tank has its own HP that is not shown, and for the battle with Mr. Schneobelen the health is displayed by the number of support columns left that hold the turret you deflect the attacks with (though his morning star attack can still hurt you directly).
185* ''VideoGame/{{Parameters}}'': For both the player and the enemies, are yellow bars that decrease from right to left, with fraction HitPoints representation on them, in "Current / Max"-style.
186* ''VideoGame/{{Pepsiman}}'' has a three-hit life meter displayed by the spinning Pepsi logo at the top of the screen. It gets smaller as he takes damage and [[HealingFactor grows back]] over time.
187* ''VideoGame/ThePersistence'': The second white bar in the left-hand corner of the screen measures Zimri's hit points. If you get hit, it goes down and if it fully depletes, you die. You can raise the health bar by grabbing [[HealThyself med-kits]].
188* ''VideoGame/PitfallTheMayanAdventure'' had an alligator creeping up on a picture of Harry, getting closer as he took damage. You lose a life if the alligator chomps him.
189* ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'' with it changing colors from green to yellow to red.
190** And a very annoying [[CriticalAnnoyance looped beeping noise]] when it's in the red.
191*** In ''VideoGame/PokemonBlackAndWhite'', this is replaced with the looped beeping noise remixed into awesome music.
192** It also has numerical values with HP being a stat that can be increased, but you can only see the exact value for your own Pokemon.
193* ''VideoGame/PrimalLight'': Located in the top-left corner of the screen is [[PlayerCharacter Krog]]'s health bar. Wearing the Emblem of Ur lets Krog see his enemies' health bars.
194* In ''VideoGame/PrimalRage'', the energy bars are veins connected to a heart at the end, and the special bar below is a nerve linked to a brain. Winning a match causes the loser's heart to explode and the brain to melt into ashes. It gets better in the subsequent rounds.
195* The life meter in ''VideoGame/PrinceOfPersia'''s "Sands Trilogy" is aqua blue, indicative of the use of water as life replenishment.
196** In the original game, it was a set of triangles, like in Jordan Mechner's previous game ''VideoGame/{{Karateka}}''. Later ports (for Japanese home computers, the Platform/AppleMacintosh, SNES, Platform/TurboGrafx16 and Platform/SegaCD) changed this to a set of potions, identical in appearance to the games' {{healing potion}}s.
197* The original Platform/{{MSX}}2 version of ''VideoGame/PsychicWorld'', titled ''Psycho World'', had the red H.P. bar intertwining with the green ESP bar to form a double helix. The Platform/SegaMasterSystem and Platform/GameGear ports used normal-shaped bars instead.
198* ''VideoGame/QuantumReplica'': [[PlayerCharacter Alpha]]'s health bar is located in the top left corner of the screen.
199* ''VideoGame/Raid2020'': Shadow has a lifebar made up of hearts shown on the right side of the screen, each heart being 2 HP. He starts with 20 HP and can have up to 255 HP, but only 10 hearts can be displayed at once.
200* The platform games Creator/{{Rare}} developed for the Platform/Nintendo64 has an idiosyncratic, unique life meter each:
201** Honeycombs in ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'' and its sequel.
202** Watermelons in ''VideoGame/DonkeyKong64''.
203** Chocolate units in ''VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay''.
204* ''VideoGame/RawFootage'': Located in the bottom left corner of the screen is a red line with a red plus next to it.
205* ''VideoGame/Rayman2TheGreatEscape'' introduced the series to the life meter. Before this, Rayman used a HitPoint system.
206** Something funny used in ''Rayman 2'' is an image of Rayman's head in the upper left corner turning from happy to sad when low on life.
207* ''VideoGame/RCHelicopter'' has a numerical indicator in the top right of the screen that shows many hits a helicopter can take before it breaks down. Each copter starts with 5 hit points, and the player can buy body upgrades to increase their HP to 11.
208* ''VideoGame/RedGoddessInnerWorld'': Located in the top-left corner of the screen is [[PlayerCharacter Divine]]'s health bar.
209* ''VideoGame/RemiLoreLostGirlInTheLandsOfLore'': Remi has a red health bar in the top left corner of the screen. It rests above Lore's [=MP=] bar.
210* The older ''Franchise/ResidentEvil'' games had an EKG set as the player's health bar (only visible if the player pauses the game), and it would both change color (green-yellow-orange-red, or purple if poisoned) and decrease in heart rate as the player gets hurt; playing up the realism more is if the character was poisoned, his or her heartbeat would become irregular. Generally, though, the player could die in five hits or less (and {{Mooks}}, namely zombies, could instantly kill you without some serious button-mashing). Starting with ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil4'', a more traditional health bar took place of the EKG.
211* ''VideoGame/SkinwalkerHunt'': The game has a simple white line with a white plus sign next to it as the Life Meter, located in the bottom left corner of the screen.
212* Some {{Rhythm Game}}s' life meters [[OurTropesAreDifferent are different]].
213** ''VideoGame/{{Beatmania}}'', ''Beatmania IIDX'', and ''VideoGame/PopNMusic'': Your life meter starts at 22%, and you must build your life up to (by hitting notes) and finish the song with at least 80% of your life intact to clear it. On the plus side, a drop to 0% life (or 2% on ''IIDX'') won't result in a fail. There's also the gauges for Expert mode, [=Pop'n's=] Extra Stage, and [=IIDX's=] Hard modifier, in which you start full and any amount of life left results in a clear, but running out of life will kill you.
214*** More recent versions of ''IIDX'' have the Easy, Assisted Easy, and EX Hard modifiers. Easy is the regular life gauge, but it doesn't drain as much on a missed note; Assisted Easy does this and also lowers the passing life requirement to 70%. EX Hard is denoted by a yellow life gauge (as opposed to the regular blue or Hard red) and functions the same as Hard, but with a ''much'' harsher penalty for missing notes; it takes just 6 misses to drain it completely.
215** ''VideoGame/DanceDanceRevolution'' traditionally uses a life meter called "Dance Gauge", in which you have to keep it filled for the duration of a song or else the stage is failed. Later games and course modes use a battery gauge, which gives a player at least 4 lives. Lose all 4 lives with a couple of Misses and it's Game Over.
216** ''DJMAX Technika'': In Technical mode, you must finish with at least 75% life on stage 1, 50% life on stage 2, 25% on stage 3, and simply live to see the end of stage 4. It's harder than it sounds because on each successive stage, it takes more notes to recover your life.
217** ''VideoGame/OsuTatakaeOuendan'' and ''VideoGame/EliteBeatAgents'': Your life meter (called the "Elite-O-Meter" in ''EBA'') continously drains, even if there aren't any notes to hit. This can lead to some cases where you fail the song ''in mid-combo''.
218** ''VideoGame/ReflecBeat'' simply require you to obtain at least 70% of the maximum score to clear the song.
219** ''VideoGame/{{jubeat}}'' also has the "70% of maximum score" (or in this case, 700,000 out of 1 million) passing condition in place of a life meter, but there is also a bonus that increases as you hit notes accurately, up to 100,000 points even if hitting notes would otherwise cause the bonus to continue increasing. Missing causes the bonus to decrease, to a minimum of 0 points. In a sense, there is still a Life Meter of sorts, but it's used for score bonuses.
220** ''VideoGame/{{Cytus}}'' also requires a score of 700,000 out of 1 million.
221** ''VideoGame/SoundVoltex'', much like ''beatmania'', has a meter called the [[CallAHitPointASmeerp Effective Rate]] that starts off low (in this case, 0%) and must be filled to a specific quota (in this case, 70%) before the song ends. However, it also plays this trope straight with the Permissive Rate and Excessive Rate meters; the former is used for Skill Analyzer courses and the latter is an optional challenge. There's also the Alternative Rate meter, which begins as an Excessive Rate meter, but rather than fail the player at 0% left, it instead turns into an empty Effective Rate meter at that point; however, Alternative Rate is only available if you choose the most expensive Online mode option.
222** ''CROSS×BEATS''[='=]s and ''crossbeats REV.''[='=]s standard lifebar not only don't fail you instantly if your life hits 0%, but you clear the song as long as you have even a sliver of life at all when it ends; do note, however, that it takes a sufficient combo to raise your life by a signle tick. There's also the Survival lifebar, which starts at 100% and gives you an immediate stage failure if you ever hit 0%, and the Ultimate lifebar, which depletes on anything below a Flawless, not just combo-breaking judgements, meaning that it's entirely possible to fail a song ''without a combo break''.
223** ''VideoGame/GrooveCoaster'' uses a Groove Gauge similar to ''beatmania''[='=]s, but it's not used to determine whether you get your next stage or not. Instead, it's used only for a 50,000-point bonus in arcade charts.
224** ''VideoGame/{{maimai}}'' normally doesn't have a life meter -- you only need to earn an [[ScoringPoints Achievement]] rating of 80% or higher to clear the song -- but when you're playing a Challenge Track, you're given a "LIFE" indicator at the center of the screen showing you how many more non-Perfect judgements until the game throws a GameOver at you. If you attempt a Challenge Track as soon as its out, you will only have ''[[OneHitPointWonder one life]]'', i.e. you must get an All Perfect or it's shutters for you.
225* The ''VideoGame/RoadRash'' series has a durability meter for your bike. If it becomes empty following a collision, it will explode the moment you try to mount it again, ending the race and forcing you to pay a repair bill. In theory, it's possible to still complete a race by just running across the finish line: as long as you don't touch your bike when its durability is exhausted, it won't count as wrecked (although you will likely end up dead last if you're far from the finish line, and you can still get busted by the police).
226* In ''VideoGame/RogueSquadron'' there is a small icon of the current starship on screen. Damage taken changes the icon's color. It's blue (After obtaining a powerup to increase them) and goes through green to yellow as your shields take damage, then orange to red if you continue to get shot up before your shields recharge. In the following sequels, the icon was converted into a small, fully 3D wireframe of the ships (humans for on foot missions) surrounded by a thinning circle which would swerve as you moved around, but would spin if you took any damage, the speed and intensity which increased depending on how strong. This would result in incredibly erratic spinning if you were continuously taking fire, though it gets kinda funny when it happens to the human wireframe. Both games feature an instant shield recharge option if you were low while using a ship that had a R2 unit. Though if you get hit again, you'll lose it before you can press it.
227* The arcade game ''VideoGame/RollingThunder'' has an eight-unit life bar, though this feature is hardly necessary: [[CollisionDamage colliding with]] or getting punched by {{Mooks}} takes out half of the bar, and getting hit by ''any'' projectile [[OneHitKill kills the player outright]]! The NES port makes things a little bit more honest by having the life bar be only two units. The second game brought in the concept of [[HeartContainer hidden items that can extend your max life]] to up to five units, allowing the player to potentially withstand two bullets.
228* ''{{Sapiens}}'' uses a single symbol as a Life Meter. When you're in perfect health, the meter depicts a large heart. As you receive damage, the heart decreases gradually, then disappears, then is replaced with progressively larger skulls.
229* ''VideoGame/SaveRoom'': Located in the top-left corner of the screen. As a means of getting rid of [[PoisonMushroom Poison Mushrooms]] and healing items, you can use them to lower and raise your health.
230* ''VideoGame/SCPSecretLaboratory'' uses a basic bar in the bottom-left of the screen, colour-coded based on what class you are: yellow for Scientists, grey for Facility Guards, orange for [[DeathRow D-Class]], light blue for MTF units, dark green for Chaos Insurgency, and red for SCPs.
231* ''VideoGame/{{Scrabdackle}}'': Blue’s life meter is denoted by several pink vials of HealingPotion, which drain one by one as they’re hit by enemy attacks.
232* ''VideoGame/ShadowWarrior1997'' has a percentage meter for the player and bars for the bosses.
233* The ''VideoGame/{{Shantae}}'' series uses HeartsAreHealth for its life restoring, the life meter, and its {{Heart Container}}s, where 1 {{Hit Point|s}} is a quarter-heart:
234** ''VideoGame/Shantae2002''
235** ''VideoGame/ShantaeRiskysRevenge'': The quartering is done by unfilling from top to bottom of each HeartSymbol, instead of cutting it in half length and width-wise.
236** ''VideoGame/ShantaeAndThePiratesCurse'' and ''VideoGame/ShantaeAndTheSevenSirens''.
237** The sole exception is in ''VideoGame/ShantaeHalfGenieHero'' when [[VillainEpisode playing]] as [[VillainProtagonist Risky Boots]] in ''Pirate Queen's Quest'', where which the player's health is represented by purple ''skulls'' instead of hearts.
238* "VideoGame/ShounenKinindenTsumuji" starts with Tsumuji having 3 flames which can go up to 12 flames after collecting enough Life Candles to increase his health.
239* All ''Franchise/SilentHill'' games except ''4'' and ''Homecoming'' avert the onscreen lifebar tactic, instead letting you gauge how much you had left by a colored screen in the pause menu, or a percentage in ''Downpour''.
240* ''VideoGame/SkeletalAvenger'': The health meter is a big round gold jar containing red fluid in the bottom left corner of the screen.
241* ''VideoGame/SkeletonBoomerang'': [[PlayerCharacter Hunter]]'s health bar is located in the top-left corner of the screen, and is represented by bones.
242* ''VideoGame/SleepTight2021'': At the foot of the bed is a line of hearts that act as your health. When you're attacked by a creature, one of them loses its colour.
243* ''VideoGame/SlyCooperAndTheThieviusRaccoonus'' had horseshoes Sly could pick up to get more than one hit. Get one, and a silver horseshoe would appear on his backpack. Get another, and the horseshoe turns gold. Dropped outright for a standard health meter in the sequels.
244* ''VideoGame/{{Smashroom}}'': The health meter is located in the top right corner of the screen. It'r represented by a line of hearts. It can be refilled by collected big red mushrooms.
245* ''VideoGame/TheSmurfs1994'': The player can take up to four hits (displayed as hearts) before he loses a life. But watch out for the Bzz Fly or the Black Smurf in the Super NES and Mega Drive versions, for running into them is a OneHitKill.
246* ''VideoGame/SoUhASpaceshipCrashedInMyYard'': All characters in the party section of the menu have a red meter of HP.
247* The 1990 ''VideoGame/{{The Amazing Spider|Man1990}}-Man'' game for the various home computers at the time has Spider-Man's health represented by a screen-tall picture of him on the right that gradually turns into a skeleton(!) as he loses health.
248* ''Franchise/SpyroTheDragon'': The dragonfly Sparx literally serves as a health meter, changing colors from gold at full health down to blue and then green, and then disappearing entirely. After that, a single hit will kill you. The game explains this by way of some vague protective magic Sparx generates. The later games stop using Sparx as a health indicator and revert to a conventional health meter, since the new combat system requires Spyro to have way more health than in previous games, which would have been difficult to show with Sparx.
249* The ''Franchise/StarFox'' games have a life bar for your character and most of the bosses (the general exceptions are some of the Final Bosses, such as Andross [[spoiler:except in ''VideoGame/StarFoxAdventures'']] and the Slot Machine in the first game's alternate ending). In ''VideoGame/StarFox64'', Slippy provides the boss life meters and if he isn't around, either due to him being down or Fox being alone to fight Andross, the life meter will not show up.
250* ''VideoGame/StickFight''[='s=] stick figure combatants have no life meter and simply take hits until they die or suffer a OneHitKill. However, in the boss stages that occasionally show up, the player that becomes the flying boss does get a life meter that stretches across the top of the screen.
251* ''VideoGame/SuperDungeonBros'': Each [[PlayerCharacter knight]] gets a life bar at the top of the screen. Boss life bars are on the bottom of the screen.
252* Shows up in some ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' games, namely in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2'' as red hexagons (hearts in the remakes, and upgradable from two to four), and in ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'', ''VideoGame/SuperMarioSunshine'', ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'', ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'' and ''VideoGame/SuperMarioOdyssey'' as a colored ball divided into three to eight wedges, depending on the game. The one in ''64'' doubles as Mario's health meter ''and'' OxygenMeter, leading to a [[GoodBadBugs glitch where you can completely refill Mario's health by dunking in some water and coming up for air.]]
253* Your life meter in the ''VideoGame/SuperStarWars'' series is displayed as a lightsaber.
254* The second and third ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRage'' have a standard health bar for players and {{Mooks}}, but a boss' health bar is slightly different from the player's. In game 2, the boss' health bar was shown in blue and the number of stars under their name showed how many health bars they had. By the 3rd game, they changed the stars to a number next to the health bar, which makes it look like the amount of "lives" the boss had. Once all the extra bars of health were gone, the boss' life bar would be shown in yellow/red like any other enemy. On higher difficulty levels, even some {{Mooks}} can have multiple bars of health like a boss.
255* The swordsmanship MiniGame in ''VideoGame/SwordOfTheSamurai'' has an interesting spin on it, in keeping with the game's feel, which is to contain absolutely no anachronisms. Each time a combatant takes a hit, a brush draws the strokes in the kanji for 'life'; when it is complete, they die.
256* ''VideoGame/SydneyHunterAndTheCurseOfTheMayan'': Located in the bottom-left corner of the screen, it resembles a line of hearts.
257* ''VideoGame/TalesOfSymphonia'': Seen in the party menu, and the battle menu. Decreases from right to left, showing black, with a gradient going from red to yellow, with yellow being wherever the current measurement is.
258* ''VideoGame/TargetAcquired2016'': The red bar on the bottom left side of the screen shows [[PlayerCharacter Yura]]'s health.
259* ''VideoGame/TimothyVsTheAliens'': In the top left corner of the screen, it shows [[PlayerCharacter Timothy]]'s health and ammo.
260* ''VideoGame/TokyoXtremeRacer'':
261** The series has life meters, but not for how much more your car can take; rather, during races, you lose life when you are trailing behind your opponent or run into something. Whoever runs out of life first loses the race, as opposed to whoever reaches a goal first like in most other racing games (although this is an alternate way to win in ''Kaido Battle'').
262** The original ''VideoGame/WanganMidnight'' arcade game, being based on ''Shutokou Battle'', also has this system, but you can also win by [[HoldTheLine being ahead of your opponents when the time runs out]]...unless you are on the last stage's second phase, in which case the time limit is disabled, so the only way to win is to run down the bosses' meters.
263** The ''Kaido Battle'' spin-off also featured a twist in this system. Running out of life does not equal an instant loss if you're either ahead of your opponent, or are following close enough so the meter won't start draining. Also, as there are both defined start and finish points, you could also win be [[HoldTheLine crossing the finish line first]].
264* In the early ''Franchise/TombRaider'' games, it's only visible, if you get hurt or heal yourself.
265* ''VideoGame/{{Transistor}}'': Red's meter of hit points is VagueHitPoints due to being ungradated and when she takes damage, it's not presented numerically.
266* ''VideoGame/TrashQuest'': In the top left corner of the screen. It's represented by a line of circles next to a heart.
267* ''VideoGame/TreasureHunterMan1'': Marvin's is in HeartsAreHealth style at the top left of the screen.
268* ''VideoGame/{{Triggore}}'': On the right side of the HUD at the bottom of the screen is the health, which is represented by ten hearts.
269* ''VideoGame/Trophy2021'': In the top left corner of the screen is a vertical blue line that represent's [[PlayerCharacter Trophy]]'s health. It's likely meant to help emulate [[VideoGame/MegaManClassic the game's inspiration]].
270* In ''VideoGame/TheTwistedTalesOfSpikeMcFang'', Spike's hitpoints are represented by tomatoes, while enemies' hitpoints are represented by garlic cloves (whether or not they're made of garlic).
271* During Argument minigames in ''VisualNovel/TyrionCuthbertAttorneyOfTheArcane'', Tyrion and his opponent get a health bar that is drained when the player picks answers or presents evidence. If you get it right, your opponent loses HP. If you get it wrong, you lose HP. Unlike ''Ace Attorney'', no such health bar is present during cross-examinations, so the player isn't punished for presenting wrong evidence there.
272* ''UNDEFEATED'' has a twist on the concept: Since your character is an invincible Superman {{expy}}, you have a "hero meter" that goes up everytime you complete one of your goals, but goes down every time buildings or citizens take collateral damage during a battle... If this meter gets too low you do fail the mission, so it's sort of a health meter for ''the setting''.
273* ''VideoGame/{{Urbanoids}}'': You have a yellow energy bar which is depleted when you shoot or get hit. About ten shots or three hits is enough to fully deplete it.
274* ''VideoGame/Valkie64'': Located in the top-left corner of the screen is the health meter, which is represented by [[HeartsAreHealth a line of hearts]]. It can be extended by collecting heart pieces.
275* ''VideoGame/VentureKid'': Located in the top-middle of the screen is [[PlayerCharacter Andy]]'s health meter, which is represented by [[HeartsAreHealth a line of hearts]]. The health bar of the bosses is located in the top-right corner of the screen when they appear.
276* ''VideoGame/ViewtifulJoe'' had bosses with multi-layered life meters; deplete the topmost layer, and you start working on the next one of a different color. Stronger bosses had more and more meters to whittle down.
277* ''VideoGame/TheWarriors'' uses a standard life meter designed as a circle around your character. It starts out at green and changes colors from yellow to orange to red as you get injured, and the characters themselves also suffer bruises and cuts and grow in number and intensity when their health grows lower. Strangely enough, all those visible injuries magically vanish once you use some Flash.
278* ''VideoGame/WeirdAndUnfortunateThingsAreHappening'': Both player characters and enemies have them:
279** The player characters' can be seen in battle, with current HitPoints enumerated at the right edge of the bar, and also outside battle, in the status menu.
280** The enemies' are seen when they take damage, and when being selected as the target of skills.
281* ''VideoGame/{{Whizz}}'' has the Energy Mushroom, which loses color from the top down.
282* In ''VideoGame/Wick2020'', the player character Jean Wick is an anthropomorphic candle whose health is represented by how tall he is, as he continuously loses wax from melting. Standing in puddles of wax will make him regrow and if he gets too short he will burn out.
283* ''VideoGame/WhoPressedMuteOnUncleMarcus'' uses this to track the declining health of the poisoned Uncle Marcus. It even increases when you correctly give him the proper antidote and it starts working.
284* ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'':
285** The life meters are vertically-oriented bars, and extend into both screens along the right side. Either half of the meter could be gone, gone, gone, but you're both still fighting until the whole thing is empty. It refills after every battle (counting a chain reduction battle as a single one). The bar itself is green, with empty sections of bar as gray. Bosses also have a life meter that depletes from each side of the screen and has a second, yellow bar over the green one. The colors for bosses go farther, too.
286** Players can easily be confused by the life bar. It's shared by both Neku and his partner... but the gap between the two screens is not counted in the bar. If you do poorly with the top-screen character, the life bar will fall into the bottom screen, and if you do poorly with Neku, it will rise into the top screen. So, you can't ignore one of the screens because it will still kill you. The characters do make specific comments when their portion of the life meter is exhausted.
287* ''VideoGame/WorldOfHorror'' has Stamina, a measure of the protagonists physical health, alongside [[SanityMeter Reason]], a measure of the protagonists mental health. If it reaches zero, then the protagonist dies, or goes insane, while reality crumble as an [[EldritchAbomination Old God]] awakens.
288* ''VideoGame/{{Wulverblade}}'': The [[PlayerCharacter Player Character]]'s life bar(s) appear(s) in the top-left corner of the screen, enemy soldiers' life bars appear in the top-right corner of the screen, and the boss' life meter takes up the bottom of the screen.
289* Ever since ''Smackdown: Here Comes the Pain'' and ''WWE Day of Reckoning'' (at least), the WWE-based ProfessionalWrestling games on consoles have had a variant on the health meter: it's represented by a humanoid figure with four sections (head, torso, both arms, both legs). As each region gets worked over, the meter goes from no damage to, normally, yellow-orange-red. Submission holds have better chances if you're working them on a red region, and if the head is red (on a male), certain headshots will cause bleeding.
290* In the ''VideoGame/XWing'' series, your ship's status is indicated with a colored silhouette of your fighter, that changes from green, to yellow, to red as the hull takes damage. Additionally, in fighters with deflector shields (that is any of them but the standard TIE fighters, Interceptors, and bombers), each shield facing is represented by an arc that goes through the same color progression and dim as they're depleted. Once the shield arc is gone, that shield has collapsed and incoming fire will strike the main hull. Shields can also be doubled on one or both arcs if provided with enough power, further increasing the fighter's health. Only the shields can be recharged during a mission. Hull damage cannot be repaired.
291* The ''VideoGame/{{Yakuza}}'' series uses a standard health meter, but ''VideoGame/{{Judgment}}'' places a slight twist on its function: taking damage from particularly powerful attacks will cause a portion of your health meter to break, reducing the amount of health you can recover from items until you see a doctor or use a medkit.
292* ''VideoGame/ZombieClaus'': The PlayerCharacter have a health bar, but it can only be viewed in the pause menu.
293[[/folder]]
294
295!!Non-Video Game Examples:
296
297[[folder:Anime And Manga]]
298* Fights taking place under the regulation of the DSAA in ''Manga/MagicalGirlLyricalNanohaVivid'' use the Crash Emulate system, which not only gives characters health bars, but simulates the pain that they would feel were they not under its protection (such as concussions or broken bones). For some reason, SpinOff series ''Anime/VividStrike'' does not use Crash Emulate despite all the fights being in DSAA regulated tournaments. This results in characters receiving actual injuries, [[spoiler:like Mirua's ribs getting shattered.]]
299* In ''Manga/MagicalGirlSite'', the girls' magical powers are CastFromLifespan. They each have an emblem on their skin that fades further with each use. After it depletes completely, the magical girl will die.
300* Contest Battles in ''Anime/PokemonTheSeries'' feature one, but it's not limited to the physical state of the trainer's Pokémon. Rather, it's their performance and style in battle. After a time limit, whoever has the most points advances to the next round/wins the contest.
301* ''Anime/SwordArtOnline'', taking place in VRMMO games, naturally has these. In the Aincrad arc, the HP meter's presence is an ominous reminder of the player's potential mortality, as [[DeadlyGame a game over in SAO means death in real life]].
302* Duelists in ''Anime/YuGiOh'' have meters to keep track of their life points.
303[[/folder]]
304
305[[folder:Fan Works]]
306* ''Roleplay/WeAreAllPokemonTrainers'',
307** Pallad the shiny Metagross is unique through having his health represent as an actual life bar, rather than in prose like most of the other Pokémon.
308** Zrone's Sectopod, a giant spider-like robot, uniquely also comes with a life bar.
309[[/folder]]
310
311[[folder:Films - Animated]]
312* In ''Animation/HappyHeroes2TheBattleOfPlanetQiyuan'', the participants of the Supermen race are all given devices that show their own personal HP meter; if they deplete it completely, they're out of the race. Scriptwriter S. (actually [[AuthorAvatar series creator Huang Weiming in disguise]]) is unfortunate enough to have a bug drain his whole meter and knock him out of the competition ''before it even starts''.
313* Near the end of ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolfTheTigerProwess'', the wolves and goats battle the Tigbot, a giant tiger mech serving as the power source for Lord Japper's amusement park. Throughout the entire sequence, every time the Tigbot is visible on-screen, it has a health bar which slowly depletes as the goats and wolves attack it.
314[[/folder]]
315
316[[folder:Literature]]
317* ''Literature/DungeonCrawlerCarl'' can see health bars for both allies and enemies, as long as he's in an area that gives him access to the dungeon interface (ie when he's not being pulled out of the dungeon for talk show broadcasts). They shift from green to yellow to red as more damage is inflicted.
318[[/folder]]
319
320[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
321* ''Series/InspectorKoo'': A gag. Koo Kyung-yi is both a DrunkenMaster and a video game fiend. After a nearly comatose Kyung-yi chugs a beer, a Life Energy graphic appears, and fills up to the top.
322* In ''Series/KamenRiderExAid'', all of the Riders have this. Known as the Rider Gauge, it is the energy bars that are located on the Rider's chests. The bar gets decreased in response to taking damage and increased after picking up a Recovery token. They also sound a CriticalAnnoyance warning when they get low. If the bar drops to zero, [[CriticalExistenceFailure the Rider(s) will die]], but there's an emergency function that will forcibly de-transform the Rider to prevent this from happening. [[spoiler:Kuroto Dan/Kamen Rider Genm gets around this by using a SurvivalHorror game to give himself the power of undeath, allowing him to fight with an empty gauge. Said form also has a jammer that disables the emergency rescue function, which allowed him to murder Kiriya Kujo/Kamen Rider Lazer. Eventually, Ex-Aid uses his MidSeasonUpgrade to hack Kuroto's powers, restoring his lifebar and rendering him mortal again.]]
323* The TV adventure game show ''Series/{{Knightmare}}'' represents player health with an animated graphic of a helmeted head. As the player's health decreases (which happens continually, to keep the player from dawdling too long), pieces of the helmet fall away, then pieces of the skin revealing the skull underneath, and finally the skull itself breaks apart, leaving two floating eyeballs. For a kids' TV show, this was some pretty hefty NightmareFuel. [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyOE00E5K40 See for yourself.]]
324[[/folder]]
325
326[[folder:Magazines]]
327* In ''Magazine/{{Cracked}}'' #297, focusing on ''Film/StreetFighter'', M. Bison's Life Meter goes down easily when the handicap setting is set to handicapped. [[HarsherInHindsight Not so funny]] considering the death of Raúl Juliá.
328[[/folder]]
329
330[[folder:Pinball]]
331* The saucers in ''Pinball/AttackFromMars'' have life bars which once depleted, open up the hole to destroy the saucer. In the VideoMode, the mothership has a life counter.
332* ''Pinball/TheChampionPub'' has the player fighting various opponents, both of which have life bars. You start out with three points and have to get more by training; filling it up completely lets you start a fight.
333* Several DigitalPinballTables [[VideoGame/ZenPinball designed by]] Creator/ZenStudios feature life meters near the bottom of the table, typically for the main character of the table. All three tables based on Creator/{{Bethesda}} video games (''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim'', ''[[VideoGame/Fallout4 Fallout]]'' and ''[[VideoGame/DoomZenStudios DOOM]]'') have one placed near the left flipper, as well as their ''[[VideoGame/AlienIsolationZenStudios Alien: Isolation]]'' adaptation and Zen's own original table ''Epic Quest'', which conversely have the meter placed near the right flipper.
334* In ''Pinball/FooFighters2023'', the last two phases of "The Final Battle" are presented as actual fights, giving each combatant a life bar. The heroes' drains over time while the villain's drains when the player makes certain shots.
335* ''Pinball/GunsNRosesJerseyJack'': The mode "Thirst for Carnage" includes life meters as part of its emulation of a FightingGame UI, with the goal being to deplete the Dirty Robot's health by making shots.
336* ''Pinball/{{Hyperball}}'', a ShootEmUp pinball game, requires the player to defend his base from attacking lightning bolts. The game ends when all of his [[CallAHitPointASmeerp "Energy Centers"]] are destroyed.
337* Creator/{{Capcom}}'s unreleased ''Pinball/{{Kingpin}}'' has the Power Meter, which is built up during regular play by making Power-Up shots. At the end of the last ball, the game enters "Sudden Death", where play continues while it runs down, with the flippers becoming slower and weaker as it decreases. Making more Power-Up shots add more Power and playtime, but once it's depleted, the flippers die and the game ends.
338%%* Samus has one in ''VideoGame/MetroidPrimePinball'', and can die instantly if it is depleted.
339%%* ''Pinball/RevengeFromMars'' uses these during the "Secret Weapon" mode, which is an UnexpectedGameplayChange to a FightingGame.
340* In Creator/{{Stern}}'s ''[[Pinball/StarTrekStern Star Trek]]'', the ''Vengeance'' is shown with a Life Meter during "Vengeance Multiball"; it takes damage based on how many points the player scores.
341%%* Used during the Jedi[=/=]Sith duels of ''Pinball/StarWarsEpisodeI''
342[[/folder]]
343
344[[folder:Web Comics]]
345* Webcomic/AwfulHospital has the traditional hearts for Fern.
346* An interesting variation from ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'': Health is represented by a colored bar suspended inside a clump of gel, called a "Health Vial". As you take damage, the bar is forced out of the gel, and falls to the ground and shatters when your health is depleted. When leveling up, instead of gaining a longer health bar, you get a more viscous gel.
347* ''Webcomic/LatchkeyKingdom'' has one appear for Willa on the wall of a BossRoom in the chapter "Jinx" (and never again).
348* Parodied rather well at the climax of ''Webcomic/ProblemSleuth''. [[spoiler:The final boss, Demonhead Mobster Kingpin, has three forms, each with its own health bar. The first regenerates slowly. The second has two which regenerates two times faster than damage can be inflicted. The third, however, starts with three bars that literally must be broken themselves. Right before Problem Sleuth can activate his Bad-Ass FinishingMove, DMK literally GROWS an infinite number of life bars, which are physically real and break through the Earth's surface all the way down to {{Hell}}.]]
349* ''Webcomic/TwistedTropes'': ComicBook/{{Deadpool}} fights [[VideoGame/StreetFighterII Mr Bison]] by [[BreakingTheFourthWall literally cutting his health bar]], to his annoyance.
350* ''Webcomic/YokokasQuest'': A Life Meter and ManaMeter are shown for each character in Yokoka's and Mao's parties on RPG-style status screens between chapters.
351[[/folder]]
352
353[[folder:Web Original]]
354* In the OriginalCharacterTournament ''WebOriginal/SanctumOCT'', every contestant has one above their heads, which is visible to other contestants. Justified because they're in a virtual reality tournament of sorts.
355[[/folder]]

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