Games with shitty lives system

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is that some sort of bait?

is this some sort of bait?

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The fact of the matter is that most games since probably the early '90s simply don't understand how lives are supposed to work. The lost understanding is so bad now that you even have indie trash like Meat Boy that seem to think it's an "outdated" or superfluous idea entirely. Can one blame them when lives are implemented so utterly hamfistedly in a game like Super Mario Galaxy, where they're handed out like candy, reset every time you start up the game again, and almost no progress is lost whatsoever when you run out?

Super Meat Boy is designed around the lack of any lives system. You have levels with no checkpoints which are ultimately very short and its not like there aren't any stages in Super Meat Boy which use lives properly.

Another game with a completely stupid lives system is Serious Sam 2. It isn't even purely checkpoint based.

Yeah and it explains why it's trash. In the old games, you never lost lives that much, but dying had an impact. Games like Contra and Life Force had limited lives and set you back if you lost them all. In order to win, you would have to know how to conserve resources and skillfully tackle tough enemies. It required skill to triumph and it had no trouble putting your precious progress at stake. Sometimes it did have bullshit difficulty in there, but the best classics gave a mostly fair challenge.

"Old school" indie games like Meat Boy, on the other hand, make you die left and right just to get past a single level even if you know what you're doing, but you rarely lose anything for dying too much. This type of game is hard, but not in any way challenging since there is hardly anything on the line. Instant retry with no punishment lets developers get away with lazy, shallow level design, because players are never going to notice the bad to the extent they would when they're actually being punished for failing. All of this is enabled by a lack of implemented finite lives or retries system.

Indie devs somehow think this is how the old school games actually were, which probably explains why most of them can't even make a proper game at all.

The answer to games that make a mockery of compelling challenge design like Super Mario Galaxy isn't to ditch lives systems entirely, it's to do it right.

You talk like a fag and your shit's retarded.

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You mean guys, right OP?

kill yourself

No, he means stocks

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Yeah I worded that poorly. It's challenging at any given moment sure, but because a test on the player's skill is only ever performed and overcome once (because there is no loss of progress on failure) the game never demands mastery.

good one retard

Were you raised Jewish, user.

MMZ really wanted to be an arcade-y title between the lives system and the missable fairies, but it was too long to be played that way.

What I really hate from MMZ is how it penalizes you from using all the stuff you are supposed to collect, it would be like not showing you the ending of MMX if you collect all life expansions and e-tanks.

I think what MMZ was GOING for was replay value - the game becomes very different based on which cyber-elves you use, and which rank you got in which area. (Because getting a better rank got you unique power-ups, but also affected the game's difficulty including changing the boss' patterns.)

So actually a really good idea conceptually, but is right - the games are too long for that to really be enjoyable.

Like many of their titles, nice concept, slightly flawed execution.

That's still stupid. Once you overcome a level there are more levels after it. While it's true that you failing a bunch of times will make you better at that particular level that doesn't mean you don't develop skills moving forward.

I remember when Yahtzee made that review of Rayman Origins everyone parroted that thing about the lives system being outdated.

It is like that stupid meme about the tank controls only being there to make games like Silent Hill and Resident Evil scary.

Is it just me or has their been more threads or posts about Megaman Zero recently?

I'd like to believe shitposting and arguing about Megaman gave MMZ more exposure.

I asume the reason behind that was that the game wanted you to get better at the game without killing elves to help you, instead encouraging you to learn boss behaviour and how to control zero better

I didn't play it, but I liked the concept in Twinsanity.
You have a relatively small number of lives pickups around the map. If you die, you lose a life. If you lose all lives, you have to start the level over with the default number of lives, losing any extra ones you had managed to get in previous levels.
It allows for a relatively large game though it'd be shit for small ones, and rewards the player for playing it safe without screwing you over if you are a journalist.

I get what you are saying. Games with infinite lives and checkpoints everywhere can seem hard in the sense that you die a lot, though it's still not very frustrating because the player does constantly progress, and this crutch often leads to shitty level design (why follow the golden rule that a player with great reflexes and understanding of the game's rules shouldn't ever run into a surprise death situation, if failing doesn't matter) and the player having a shit attitude to the game. No matter how deep the mechanics of a game are, there is always the possibility of random inputs leading to success, and a comfy unlimited and instant retry options makes this strategy more viable.

I get what you are saying. Games with infinite lives and checkpoints everywhere can seem hard in the sense that you die a lot, though it's still not very frustrating because the player does constantly progress, and this crutch often leads to shitty level design (why follow the golden rule that a player with great reflexes and understanding of the game's rules shouldn't ever run into a surprise death situation, if failing doesn't matter) and the player having a shit attitude to the game. No matter how deep the mechanics of a game are, there is always the possibility of random inputs leading to success, and a comfy unlimited and instant retry options makes this strategy more viable.

I get what you are saying. Games with infinite lives and checkpoints everywhere can seem hard in the sense that you die a lot, though it's still not very frustrating because the player does constantly progress, and this crutch often leads to shitty level design (why follow the golden rule that a player with great reflexes and understanding of the game's rules shouldn't ever run into a surprise death situation, if failing doesn't matter) and the player having a shit attitude to the game. No matter how deep the mechanics of a game are, there is always the possibility of random inputs leading to success, and a comfy unlimited and instant retry options makes this strategy more viable.

It was just in my backlog and I finished it recently.

Sooo, what was the sort?

Except meatboy has mechanics to encourage to you replay levels, even after beating them, as you need a certain clear time to unlock the dark world version of each level, there are bandages to collect for unlocking characters, and secret levels to find to collect more bandages or even straight up unlock new characters. Meatboy takes the approach of making a straight run-through of the basic game not all that punishing, but you really have to git gud if you want to get everything there is in the game.

I will concede MMZ is a little bullshit. Dying costs you an A rank so whats the point? I guess if youre playing for progression

some sort of bait

Megaman Zero had a life pickup in each level that you could just farm to retain your lives.

Megaman Zero had a progression mechanic where if you died, the games would progress as if you had also completed the level because you were too shit, might effect the ending? I wasn't shit enough to find out.

Megaman Zero would lower your rank which could not be recovered(?) if you used any ELF upgrades.

Like I said before on here, I am not a Mega Man fan really but I cleared that game after something like 30 hours without any upgrades when I finally decided to stop being bitch. Quit being a bitch and play it through. If you fuck up completely just reload your save. Previously I would give up at the Aztec Falcon.

I wanted to beat the rest of the series but MMZ2 is clearly nowhere near the standard of the first game so I didn't stick it out. Grappling hook is an awful fucking idea.

An example. There's a tower of fuckyou near the end of the game you climb before the PONR at the final bosses, you can save before and return after reaching the top, but not save at the top. If you're not retarded this means you climb the tower to get the extra life and teleport back to build up max lives for the end of the game. It's designed that way. You will master that climb.

The game is excellence in game design. Tards get to feel good by upgrading their shit to EZmode through the game while the real game is underneath.

Super Mario World started you off with 3 lives no matter how many you had when you saved.

X8 did cuck you from the endgame boss Lumine if you chose Easy mode. Although cyber-elves aren't explicitly easy mode, pumping yourself with all of them would be. MMZero was also designed to be a handheld game first, so replayability via git gud was a sound idea at the time, but by Zero 4 they phased it out.


If you continued past failing a mission, you'd lose the part the mission gave you (triple rod, weapon elementals, etc.) and eventually skip to the endgame, starting where you'd fight Hanumachine inside the base.

Likewise, you can at least use 1 cyber elf between missions and still get an A, if you played a perfect mission. In Z1, A rank just means you get an extra boss move, but Z2 & onward tied it to special boss abilities that weren't tied to weaknesses, so they were more for bragging rights than something you'd need.

Shame it got wasted on one game, but it shows Inticreates tried to mix it up fundamentally than do what X did & throw garbage powers on top of the fundamentals.

I agree the fact that Descent has one is dumb. Especially considering that they allow saving at any time.

Except Zero actually let you skip a ton of missions if you wanted/if you sucked too hard, and it made the game harder since you wouldn't get the chips or anything.