Subverted: The first thing you pick up in level one is an item that gives you an extra hit point. This is the only time you will get one, and it doesn't respawn.
Your Voice with an Internet Connection tells you that the enemies are made of anti-matter and will kill you in one hit, but you find a pair of boots that give you an extra hit..
Double Subverted: ...but it turns out that "extra hit" refers to hitting the enemy an extra time right before you die, so you have to pump the enemy full of lead until it's a One-Hit-Point Wonder.
Though you don't die in one hit, one hit still causes you to fail instantly.
Untwisted: Your Voice with an Internet Connection mentions that the tanks will shoot you with machine guns instead of missiles. A health bar appears. You get shot in the foot and die.
Parodied: You have one hit point, but 65535 lives and you respawn on the spot.
Deconstructed: You're playing a sad RTS where-in you lead puppies in a war against Panzers.
Reconstructed: You're playing a fun RTS where-in you lead cyborg puppies in a war against Panzers. The missiles one hit kill the puppies, but the puppies can easily dodge and one-hit-eat the tanks.
Necessary Weasel/Coconut Effect: A developer decides to give your space ship hit points, until he realizes he'd be in a minority and decides against it.
A developer wants to go back to the time when video games were Nintendo Hard...
Plotted A Good Waste: The programmer ran out of space in RAM for a health points variable. However, since you no longer need to worry about any other enemies' data during the final boss, you now have 3 hits and can do a lot more damage with 3 hits than you could with the 65 lives you spent getting there thanks to your new gun. And the lack of bottomless pits.
Played For Laughs: The point of the game is to preform epic stunts, and depending on the rule of funny, running into that Goomba at the end of the level at the end of the stunt may net you more points that reaching the goal point.
Played For Drama: Fire Emblem turns into a Nintendo Hard platformer. Your characters are your lives. Good luck with that.