History Main / DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist

* In ''Manga/DeliciousInDungeon'', anyone who dies within the titular dungeon has their soul tethered to their bodies, so they are able to be brought back from the dead with healing magic fairly easily as long as their body is relatively intact. The main characters mention their previous deaths in a very casual way, and a character who gets killed and resurrected is more annoyed by the circumstances than anything else.

* Zigzagged in ''VideoGame/GeometryDash'': this game treats every single level as separate, and their completions all sum up like Gamerscore in Xbox, thus progress in GD can span thousands of hours and can not be lost unless player forgot to save. On the levels, however, dying even on 99% gets you back all the way to start. Luckily, you can practice it in practice mode where you can place endless checkpoints. And your attempts are always endless. And, normally Classic mode levels only last 1.5-2 minutes.

* Zigzagged in "VideoGame/GeometryDash": this game treats every single level as separate, and their completions all sum up like Gamerscore in Xbox, thus progress in GD can span thousands of hours and can not be lost unless player forgot to save. On the levels, however, dying even on 99% gets you back all the way to start. Luckily, you can practice it in practice mode where you can place endless checkpoints. And your attempts are always endless. And, normally Classic mode levels only last 1.5-2 minutes.

* Downplayed in ''Literature/{{Konosuba}}''; Aqua, due to being a goddess, is capable of casting Resurrection, but she's not ''supposed'' to, and certainly not multiple times on the same being; she gets away with repeatedly raising Kazuma after his many, ''many'', deaths, due to the fact that Eris, the goddess who has to let Kazuma return each time, is her [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem subordinate]], [[spoiler:and also moonlights as Chris the Thief, Kazuma's friend, and ally, who doesn't want him to stay dead any more than Aqua does]]. Presumably, they'd all be in a lot of trouble if any of the higher-ranked deities found out about this. Kazuma actually begins using it to his advantage, becoming a master of the ThanatosGambit, which is no small part of the reason for their party's success.

** If you die in ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaFourSwords'', you come back to life on the spot from a preset number of rupees. The only problem is that rupees are so common in the game that this mechanic is barely a punishment in single player (On the UsefulNotes/DSi version anyways) and makes it extremely unlikely you'll ever actually get a game over outside the Hero's Trial.

* The UsefulNotes/PlaystationNetwork / UsefulNotes/XBoxLiveArcade rerelease of ''VideoGame/XMen'' lets you come back to life on the spot simply by hitting X every time you run out of lives. That's because it's an arcade game, except now you have unlimited "quarters". As a result, no matter how bad you are, you can progress just fine.

* In Creator/HudsonSoft's UsefulNotes/WiiWare FirstPersonShooter ''VideoGame/{{Onslaught}}'', dying in the multiplayer cooperative/competitive (you have to work together, but compete for score) mode simply means being dead for 10 seconds... then coming back to life on the spot with 1/4 your score gone. Considering the game's main thrust is really cooperation with score as a secondary concern, that's hardly a penalty.

** In its UsefulNotes/Nintendo64 incarnation, ''VideoGame/BanjoKazooie'' had a death consequence in the form of having to start from zero when collecting Notes (which could become a rather large pain in the arse on some of the more tricky levels). ''VideoGame/BanjoTooie'' did away with this with unlimited lives, Notes becoming permanent collectibles, and dying will simply send you back to the entrance of a room (rather than the beginning area as saving and quitting does). The XBLA incarnation of ''B-K'' follows suit turning death into a slap on the wrist at best.

* ''VideoGame/BugsBunnyLostInTime'' on the UsefulNotes/PlayStation. You have unlimited lives, and your only penalty for dying is being sent back to the last checkpoint you touched, with all of the Clocks and Golden Carrots you've picked up. Even if you die at a boss, the boss will still have the damage you gave him beforehand.

* In the UsefulNotes/GameBoyAdvance version of ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'', if you lose all your lives and choose to continue, any progress you've made on the current world won't be reset to any degree, unlike the NES and SNES versions. The only effect continuing has at all is resetting the score counter back to zero.
* In the UsefulNotes/TurboGrafx16 CD port of ''VideoGame/WonderBoyIIIMonsterLair'', entering "68k" as your initials on the ranking screen gives you unlimited continues, and since you RespawnOnTheSpot even after continuing, this effectively makes death a slap on the wrist.

* Kyubey, of ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'' [[spoiler: has a massive number of spare bodies, which makes killing him essentially impossible. Homura even admits that it's just a waste of energy to try.]]

* In ''Exile'' (the UsefulNotes/BBCMicro game), dying simply returns you to your last teleport position and applies a score penalty.

* In ''VideoGame/EverybodyEdits'', death has no consequences for the player, except a small two second wait while the [[DigitalAvatar smiley]] [[MadeOfExplodium explodes]] and respawns to the most recent {{checkpoint}}. How punishing this is depends on the world. Some worlds are rather cruel, giving the player [[CheckpointStarvation no checkpoints over long stretches of challenges]]. Others--especially the linear, [[NintendoHard very demanding]] types of worlds--will place a checkpoint after each challenge, meaning that checkpoints will sometimes bring the player back less than half a minute of play, or even a few seconds. These types of worlds can easily get a dedicated player hundreds, if not thousands of deaths in a single play session.

* In ''Anime/AngelBeats!'', being mutilated beyond recognition is roughly equal to being knocked unconscious until the bizarre universe pulls you back together. This makes sense, though, because they are ''already dead''.

* ''VideoGame/Valheim}}'': Due to being set in a Norse equivalent of purgatory (the player character is trying to earn entry to Valhalla), death is a core mechanic, and as such, the penalties are quite steeper. When you die, you respawn at the latest bed you slept in/the center of the map (both of which might be miles away, in/through hostile territory, or both), without food (so you have the absolute minimum of HP and stamina), without ''any'' of your items (some of which are necessary to traverse the terrain to get your stuff back, and worst of all, your skills take a massive hit. One update thankfully added sliders to customize the difficulty (from keeping to ''losing'' all items on death, minor to major skill loss, etc.).

* Losing a life in ''VideoGame/BattleGaregga'' lowers the game's DynamicDifficulty. In fact, it's ''[[FakeDifficulty required]]'' to keep the game easy enough to complete on one credit. Of course, you still need to have a positive number of lives in stock left when you die, but some players have mastered the art of [[TakingYouWithMe using the death shrapnel on their last life to push themselves to the next]] [[EveryTenThousandPoints point-based extra life]].

* ''VideoGame/SuperMarioRPG'' punts you to the last save block you used before your defeat (which can be painful if you went without saving for a long time). All progress is lost, but any EXP and level ups you gained are retained.

-->'''Mr. Hector Krank:''' ARGH, NO! A defeat, a failure -- it's still not enough...!
-->'''Death:''' Enough for what!? I CANNOT DIE. I am Death! D-E-A-T-H.

* A couple of ''VideoGame/{{Atelier}}'' games are lenient with death penalties:

A sister trope to MeaninglessLives, where the player theoretically has a limited number of lives, but there's enough that running out is nearly impossible, or/and you don't lose much at all if you do. Contrast ContinuingIsPainful, where you lose a ''lot'' more than expected should you decide to keep going after you lose. Contrast CheckPointStarvation, where lack of {{check point}}s results in going back really far after dying. Contrast {{Permadeath}}, where dead characters stay dead (although in the case of party members, they may be easily replaced). Compare DeathIsNotPermanent and DeathIsCheap, which are non-gameplay equivalents to the same trope. When this applies in the afterlife, as in the myth of Valhalla, see WarriorHeaven or HellIsWar.

A sister trope to MeaninglessLives, where the player theoretically has a limited number of lives, but there's enough that running out is nearly impossible, or/and you don't lose much at all if you do. Contrast ContinuingIsPainful, where you lose a ''lot'' more than expected should you decide to keep going after you lose. Contrast CheckPointStarvation, where lack of {{check point}}s results in going back really far after dying. Contrast KilledOffForReal, where dead characters stay dead (although in the case of party members, they may be easily replaced). Compare DeathIsNotPermanent and DeathIsCheap, which are non-gameplay equivalents to the same trope. When this applies in the afterlife, as in the myth of Valhalla, see WarriorHeaven or HellIsWar.

* The VideoGame/{{Lego Adaptation Game}}s give you infinite lives, and you respawn on the spot with no progress lost, except in the first game's vehicle levels, which return you to checkpoints. The only penalty is that you drop some Lego studs (the game's currency), and you can just pick them back up when you respawn, unless you fall into a bottomless pit. There's also an in-universe example in the ''Goblet of Fire'' portion of ''Harry Potter:'' [[spoiler:Cedric falls apart when killed with Avada Kedavra. When Harry gets back to Hogwarts with Cedric's body, Dumbledore hands Cedric's father instructions to put him back together.]]
** It gets lampshaded directly in ''Lego Batman 3'':
--->'''Kevin Smith:''' Seriously since when did videogames have to be so punishing? I mean, the best ones just let you die over and over with very little consequence other than losing studs, or you know...whatever.

* ''VideoGame/EarthBound'' does this in a similar way to ''Dragon Quest IX'', with the addition of having your PP set to zero. In fact, in ''[=EarthBound=]'', the money you receive from battles is automatically put into storage, so you're not even likely to be carrying any money to lose. In ''VideoGame/MOTHER3'', not only is money a literal non-issue in the first three chapters, but you don't even lose any PP.

* Dying in ''VideoGame/ThePedestrian'' merely resets the puzzle you were currently in. [[spoiler:And even then, it does not affect any objects on signs that are painted yellow in one late-game area.]]

** [[SubvertedTrope That being said]], there does exist two modes where the penalties are much more severe: [[BrutalBonusLevel Arbitrations]] and [[spoiler:{{Superboss}} Archon Hunts]]. Dying and not getting revived in time forces your teammates to pick up five tokens from drones supporting your enemies to revive you, and in the latter you don’t even get that chance. Thus CharacterSelectForcing is prevalent, as playing without healers like [[RedMage Trinity]] or [[SupportPartyMember Wisp]] or a method to nullify damage like [[{{Extra-ore-dinary}} Rhino]] or [[UnstoppableRage Valkyr]] is going to lead to a very swift death.

* Downplayed in ''LightNovel/{{Konosuba}}''; Aqua, due to being a goddess, is capable of casting Resurrection, but she's not ''supposed'' to, and certainly not multiple times on the same being; she gets away with repeatedly raising Kazuma after his many, ''many'', deaths, due to the fact that Eris, the goddess who has to let Kazuma return each time, is her [[ScrewTheRulesIMakeThem subordinate]], [[spoiler:and also moonlights as Chris the Thief, Kazuma's friend, and ally, who doesn't want him to stay dead any more than Aqua does]]. Presumably, they'd all be in a lot of trouble if any of the higher-ranked deities found out about this. Kazuma actually begins using it to his advantage, becoming a master of the ThanatosGambit, which is no small part of the reason for their party's success.