History Main / ContinuingIsPainful

* In ''VideoGame/{{Shinobi}}'' for the UsefulNotes/SegaMasterSystem, dying would cause your life meter (which could be extended to almost insane lengths) to reset back to its default, and you'll also lose any weapon power-ups you've obtained. This can be particularly annoying in the levels with the bottomless pits. Good luck fighting those dive-bombing enemies in level 5-2 with a crappy life bar!

** The UsefulNotes/PCEngine ''Valis'' games can suffer from this in their later levels, owing to the increasing scarcity of power-ups.

* The [[DifficultyByRegion International]] version of ''VideoGame/BombermanHero'' steals your Bomb Count, Firepower and, most annoyingly, your health upgrades when you get a GameOver! While the first two can ''easily'' be regained, the last one cannot as you need 200 crystals to get one upgrade! [[note]]Bomberman starts with four hit-points. A health upgrade adds one HP, with a maximum of 8 HP (four upgrades). That means you need ''EIGHT HUNDRED CRYSTALS'' to get all four upgrades back.[[/note]] Woe betide the Bomberfool who loses their last life during the endgame BossRush, thus making everything ten times harder. [[FromBadToWorse Even worse]], if you turn off your UsefulNotes/Nintendo64, You'll ''still'' lose everything meaning that you essentially need to beat the game in one sitting, without [[GameOver Game Overing]] if you don't want to grind! This is thankfully [[AvertedTrope averted]] in the [[DifficultyByRegion Japanese]] version, which keeps your upgrades no matter what.

** What’s even more to Super Monkey Ball 1 for the [[UsefulNotes/NintendoGameCube Gamecube]], is that Master cannot, generally speaking, be unlocked as a separate mode. If you only have 3 lives and 5 continues (before using Play Points to get more), it's a huge and more rigorous challenge playing through Expert and Expert Extra without continuing, meaning it which will most likely be drained while figuring out the right techniques to beat each level, and if you run out, at worst over 15-20 minutes of effort will be deemed WORTHLESS.

** Dropped items despawn after five minutes, but only while the chunk they're in is loaded. If you respawn very far away, no pressure: get your bearings, gather up a fresh set of armor and weapons perhaps, and set off when you're ready. But once the items are within your maximum draw distance, the clock is ticking. Hope you died someplace with a memorable landmark, or you could walk right past it enough times to make it despawn... or just never find it at all. Not to mention that if you made a map, you probably had it with you when you died. This is especially painful if you died while exploring deep underground (the ''other'' most common way to die to monsters) since caves tend to sprawl out every which way and it's easy to get lost. Strongholds and mineshafts are no exception either.

* In ''TabletopGame/GeistTheSinEaters'', a Sin-Eater can be repeatedly rescued from death by the Geist bonded to their soul. However, not only does someone else [[BalancingDeathsBooks die in their place]], they suffer a permanent drop on the SanityMeter, which makes it harder for them to control their powers and can ultimately let the Geist spirit [[GrandTheftMe take over their body for good]]. Unfortunately, the Sin-Eater doesn't get a vote in whether the Geist chooses to resurrect them...

* ''TabletopGame/TheOneRing'': Unlike any other culture, High Elves can't reduce their [[SanityMeter Shadow score]] without permanent cost. Every time they do, they need to mark off a {{skill|ScoresAndPerks}}; from then on, every Eye roll (a 1/12 chance) with that skill is an automatic CriticalFailure ''and'' incurs a Shadow Point. It's both a balance feature and a representation of the malaise [[DyingRace driving the Elves away from Middle-earth]].

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' makes dying a bit less painful than its spiritual predecessor, ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragonsThirdEdition''. Instead of causing the character to actually lose a class level and the associated abilities, Pathfinder's negative levels are a penalty to all rolls that the character makes and to their maximum HP; characters at level 1 instead suffered 2 points on Constitution drain, in a similar fashion to 3.5. Unlike the penalties from 3.5's revival magic, the character doesn't have to just accept the fact that they have these penalties, as the negative levels or Con drain can be removed through certain healing magic. The downside is that the magic needed to remove negative levels or Con drain ''also'' require expensive components, so your party needs to pay several thousand gold for the spell to bring you back, plus another thousand gold ''per negative level''. And that's assuming that the party has someone who can cast the spells themselves, otherwise you have to pay someone to cast the spell for you on top of the component costs.

** Made easier in the sequel, where your stuff is "stored" in a corpse that only you can loot--plus you can simply quit and your corpse will be moved to town (unless you're playing [[{{Permadeath}} hardcore]]).

* In the original ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'', dying in multiplayer to a monster (rather than a player) would result in you dropping all your equipped items. When fighting a particularly mean boss monster, that would get painful even if another player didn't come across your gear and steal everything in the meantime.

* In ''VideoGame/ChoRenSha68k'', dying makes you lose all your powerups (and resets your bomb counter to 3, which is good if you have less than that but bad if you have more), not to mention your score is reset if you continue. Worse, lives, bombs, and your shield all count for points at the end of a level. Worse still, while in the earlier levels the triple-item trick (sit in the middle of a small ring of three items for a few seconds to get all of them) is simple, doing this without using a bomb or your shield in later levels is all but impossible. The levels are already hard enough when you have sufficiently upgraded, but the powerups (which are much less frequent now) are much harder to get to without dying and losing them, thanks to your weaker gun and lack of a shield.

* Dying in ''VideoGame/{{Contra}}'' made you lose your current gun. This is bad if you've been running around with the [[SpreadShot Spread Gun]] and have to rely on the [[WithThisHerring pea shooter]] to kill the boss. Luckily, the pea shooter became more powerful in ''Contra III''. Additionally, being able to switch between two weapons meant that if you swapped out the weapon you wanted to keep before you died, you could have it on your next life.

* ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'':

** In ''VideoGame/SonicHeroes'', nearly every level in the game is a 10-15 minute marathon (the Chaotix mission for Mystic Mansion approaches ''[[MarathonLevel half an hour]]'') -- sure, none of the jumps are individually particularly hard, but you have a good chance of messing up one somewhere along the line. Good luck A-ranking the Hard mode, where each level is 10-15 minutes of raw PlatformHell where you can die if your Light Dash causes you to Blue Tornado instead. It gets infuriating trying to complete such long levels without dying (AND making sure you're doing well enough to get the A Rank you're trying to preserve).\\
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As you progress through levels, hitting checkpoints and killing enemies, your teammates will gain levels, up to level 3. When you've got a full team at level 3, destroying enemies is a joke and platforming can be done quickly and smoothly. But if you die, you are sent back to your last checkpoint with all three of your team members at level 0. If you couldn't do it at level 3, be prepared to try again with the clunky, slow and weak abilities of a level 0 team.

** In 2-player mode, when someone loses their last life, only the stages cleared by that player will have to be done again. This can lead to some interesting situations.

* Every single ''Franchise/SonicTheHedgehog'' game since ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' (except for ''VideoGame/SonicColors'' and ''VideoGame/SonicGenerations'') will reset your score to zero every time you die. To add insult to injury, every level is ranked at the end, so if you die at any point past the first checkpoint, expect an infuriating "E" rank as you reward for getting to the end. Dying close the beginning of the level gave you enough time to make up your score, but dying near the end (or even worse, at the last checkpoint) would make sure you got nothing but an "E". A "D" if you're lucky. The time bonus and ring bonus simply aren't enough to make up for the raw score you get over the level.

* Every single ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog'' game since ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'' (except for ''VideoGame/SonicColors'' and ''VideoGame/SonicGenerations'') will reset your score to zero every time you die. To add insult to injury, every level is ranked at the end, so if you die at any point past the first checkpoint, expect an infuriating "E" rank as you reward for getting to the end. Dying close the beginning of the level gave you enough time to make up your score, but dying near the end (or even worse, at the last checkpoint) would make sure you got nothing but an "E". A "D" if you're lucky. The time bonus and ring bonus simply aren't enough to make up for the raw score you get over the level.

* Some games that make you respawn in place if you continue make you restart the level instead at certain points in the game, such as the last stages of ''VideoGame/AeroFighters 2'' and ''3'' or the last 3 stages of ''Varth: Operation Thunderstorm''.

* ''{{VideoGame/Valheim}}'': Dying reduces all your skills by 5% (you get a grace period where this doesn't happen if you die ''again'') and respawns you at your bed or the sacrificial stones. While in theory you can get your gear back by grabbing it from your gravestone, circumstances often make this difficult (and in some cases leads to a CycleOfHurting if you died during a base raid). The frustration is even mentioned in-universe, as some runestones mention people who were killed and have yet to show up again.

* The NES game ''VideoGame/SilverSurfer''. Die once (and it's [[OneHitpointWonder ridiculously easy to die]]), and you lose all of your powerups, making the rest of the game and probably the current stage {{unwinnable}}.

* ''VideoGame/StarFox64''. Get killed by a boss even when you have full upgrades? Well, get ready to fight him again, but with half your lifebar and one-third your firepower. That oughta help! ''VideoGame/StarFoxAssault'' is guilty of this as well. Continuing is especially painful when facing the improved Star Wolf on Venom. Couldn't beat them with the best firepower upgrade? Try doing it with your weak default laser. It doesn't help that you are immediately thrown into the fight.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Raiden V}}'', you get to keep your powerups after death, but continuing resets your score, which determines which story path you take and which of the MultipleEndings you receive.

** A GameOver in ''VideoGame/WarioLandSuperMarioLand3'' causes you to lose one of your treasures, and you must retrieve the lost treasure again.
*** If you had no treasure when you get a GameOver, you lose half the gold from your bank instead. This is actually a lot worse than losing some of your treasures as gold is much harder to come by; Lost treasures can easily be recovered by simply replaying the level you found it in, which takes only a few minutes at most. Recovering the lost gold, in comparison, can take ''hours'' (or a lot of luck with the betting minigame).
*** Also, losing a life costs you all the coins you got in that level so far. Of course, you'll probably get them back upon redo.)

* ''VideoGame/Gimmick1992'' has infinite continues, but using one resets your score to 0 and locks you out of the GoldenEnding for that playthrough.

* The NES ''VideoGame/NinjaGaiden'' games are very cruel about this. If you die while fighting a boss, you get knocked back to the beginning of the previous level. If you [[GameOver lose your]] ''[[GameOver last]]'' [[GameOver life]] while fighting the boss, there's a good chance you'll get booted all the way back to the beginning of the act.
** Worse, dying on any of the final bosses automatically boots you back to Act 6-1.
*** Cinematic introduction of bosses refill your life bar. Facing the same boss again after a previous failure ''does not.''

* In the NES adventure game ''VideoGame/{{Nightshade}}'', continuing the game is a puzzle in itself. If Nightshade gets knocked out, the villain ties him up in a DeathTrap, and you have to figure out how to escape before Nightshade gets killed: If you don't figure out the puzzle, Nightshade dies (and the game is over). However, if you run out of energy 5 times, the BigBad decides that he's done holding the IdiotBall and puts you in an inescapable trap, and the game is over.[[/folder]]

** The same is true for other games on the Doom and Build engines. It's especially painful in ''VideoGame/{{Blood}}'', the only one on either engine where you don't spawn with a gun.

* ''LightNovel/SwordArtOnline'' focuses on a series of VR [=MMORPGs=] with [[TheMostDangerousVideoGame less-than-VR consequences]]. However, for the situations when that's not the case, this trope usually takes effect. [=ALfheim=] Online, for instance, has a system where stats are increased with use rather than via gaining levels; getting killed in-game results in a "death penalty" that lowers the player's stats. The first episode in ALO has [[TheHero Kirito]] take down two players in [=PvP=], and a third [[KnowWhenToFoldEm pass up on fighting him as well]] because he's getting close to a certain stat threshold.

** 'VideoGame/ContraHerdCorps'' only took away the weapon you were equipped with, letting you switch over to another if you have any saved up. Like ''III'', it also made your default weapon more powerful by replacing the piddly single-shot rifle with a full-auto version.

** Downplayed in ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'', since you don't need to spend money to increase the intensity before starting. Instead, you can only start Classic Mode at a maximum of 5.0 intensity, but [[DynamicDifficulty the intensity will increase during the game depending on your performance]]. Continuing after a defeat will reduce the difficulty by 0.5 and reduce your final rewards unless you use a Classic Ticket. Even if you do, however, you will not be able to finish the game with a 9.9 intensity level.