tinyE: The NES had a lot of these; the original Metal Gear and Mission Impossible come to mind and didn't Zelda have a few,or am I crazy?
Breja: I think the worst trap I've heard of (as I have nto played any NES games myself) was
in the Dirty Harry game. That one is really just bizarre and mean.
That appers to be a deliberate softlock, which is actually worse than killing the player, as it forces a reset of the entire game. Incidentally, both the trap platformers I mentioned have a key that you can press to die instantly, preventing softlocks of this sort. (This is especially handy on Syoban Action's "Mystery Dungeon" mode, where the extreme randomness sometimes creates unsolvable situations.)
IMO, in a good trap game, a trap shouldn't set you back too far. Maybe have sections between check points be just long enough for it to be difficult to keep every trap in short term memory (at least later in the game), but not any longer than that.
initialpresence: Ditto. OP already downvoted and marked as spam.
amok: You do realise that Timpuu was joking? why the bloody heck did you downrate the OP? Can you point to what exactly in the OP was offensive, inappropriate or spam?
This question goes to all who downrate the OP here - exactly why have you done so?
anyway - I tried to search for a game I had on Desura, but I can't find it again. It was styled as a typical Mario game, but everything was a trap of some sort or another, and you had to figure out how to get across on trial and error. I seem to recall your main character was a faerie?
Maybe you might be thinking of Eryi's Action? That game is clearly inspired by Syoban Action (complete with a lives counter that can go negative). I have played through the demo, up to the start of the second level (the demo has two levels), and I was laughing for quite a while after that last death.
Eryi's Action (Demo) spoiler ahead:
The death was on the world map, of all places. Trying to enter level 2 triggers an animation that seems innocent at first, but if you don't move out of the way, something that comes out of the level will kill you.