Good lives systems
Lives are often antithetical to modern game design. However, if done well, I believe lives can incentivize players to get better at a game. There is a fine line between the arcade philosophy of having to restart everything upon game over and the casual philosophy of showering the player with lives to the point they become meaningless. Below is a list of arcade-style games and franchises that successfully balance these two extremes. In addition, if there are multiple games in a series that fit the bill, they will be listed under the series’ first home console entry to keep the list concise. If you have any other examples, please share and explain in the comments! Assuming they fit, I will add them with your name credited.
8 Games
All of these titles have grueling, but fair levels that expect you to overcome their tricks without losing more than a few lives. Getting a game over only sets you back to the beginning of the current level and there are unlimited continues to encourage additional attempts. Each level also has multiple checkpoints, which really helps assuming you still have any extra lives.
For the Classic, X, and Zero games, lives work identically to Castlevania. The ZX duology differs in that saving at checkpoints guarantees at least three lives for the road ahead, a precursor to the Estus Flask in Dark Souls.
Lose all your lives and you have to restart the entire grand prix.
Same as F-Zero. Must finish 4th or higher to qualify for next race in cup.
Well-balanced length, challenge, and frequency of lives ensure redoing everything upon game over isn’t that big of a deal.
Pikmin 1 doesn’t have a traditional lives system, but you are given 30 in-game days to save Olimar and failure means restarting the campaign. Much like Star Fox though, the experience is short and sweet, so the punishment feels justified.
“Lives exist in a modern JRPG?!?!”
That’s right. Each of your party members gets five lives during a battle. Sounds unnecessary until you realize some bosses can one-shot you and there are no healing items available. Exploiting weaknesses by using specific party members is the only reliable way to defeat most bosses, so one-shot attacks can prove disruptive.
That’s right. Each of your party members gets five lives during a battle. Sounds unnecessary until you realize some bosses can one-shot you and there are no healing items available. Exploiting weaknesses by using specific party members is the only reliable way to defeat most bosses, so one-shot attacks can prove disruptive.
The base game doesn’t have lives, but NG+ takes away some of your money every time you die, effectively turning it into a lives counter. Every successive NG+ cycle increases the penalty. Fail to pay it and you have to start the file from NG+1. And don’t even think about save-scumming. You can’t copy save files. The furthest I’ve ever got is NG+4.
6 Comments
@Dunebot72 Totally fair. I’m playing through the Contra anniversary collection and all of these games actually give you limited continues on top of one-hit kills, so beating them without save states is monumentally challenging. I’ve only been able to do that for the first Contra. They stick too closely to arcade design imo, so I didn’t include them on the list.
Back to Castlevania though. There’s no shame in using save states for these games. Given what you said, I’m amazed you were able to tolerate the limited continues in Bloodlines. It’s the only classic Castlevania to my knowledge featuring that nonsense. They definitely prioritize a low number of large levels with multiple bullet points instead of dozens of bite-sized levels you can chip away at like in Mario.
Having to constantly retread levels the player has already mastered is a cliché I’ve grown especially tired of in Souls-likes. I don’t have a suitable platform to play Elden Ring right now, but I do know FromSoftware added checkpoints next to boss doors for that game. I’m hoping that will encourage imitators to abandon boss runbacks because it makes an otherwise interesting level annoying.
Back to Castlevania though. There’s no shame in using save states for these games. Given what you said, I’m amazed you were able to tolerate the limited continues in Bloodlines. It’s the only classic Castlevania to my knowledge featuring that nonsense. They definitely prioritize a low number of large levels with multiple bullet points instead of dozens of bite-sized levels you can chip away at like in Mario.
Having to constantly retread levels the player has already mastered is a cliché I’ve grown especially tired of in Souls-likes. I don’t have a suitable platform to play Elden Ring right now, but I do know FromSoftware added checkpoints next to boss doors for that game. I’m hoping that will encourage imitators to abandon boss runbacks because it makes an otherwise interesting level annoying.
YES. Part of why I wanna play Elden Ring is simply because it’s Dark Souls in an open-world… but more importantly, with more checkpoints. Part of why I can’t bring myself to finish Dark Souls is simply the amount of backtracking I need to do every single time I die. That’s 100% a skill issue, but it’s ridiculously punishing, especially if I die right before I reach another bonfire and then I have to go all the way back and pray that I can collect all my lost souls before I inevitably die again. The problem is exacerbated with bosses, where I’ll spend so much time backtracking to their arenas and trying not to die that I deadass forget what their patterns are. I’ve heard the second game has more bonfires, but has worse level design and bosses.
As for Bloodlines, it’s on Nintendo Switch Online, so I abused the rewind feature whenever I got down to 0 lives lol
As for Bloodlines, it’s on Nintendo Switch Online, so I abused the rewind feature whenever I got down to 0 lives lol
@Dunebot72 The second game is definitely not as strong in level and boss design. It’s true there are more bonfires, but the real issue I have is their inconsistent placement. Sometimes they are less than a minute’s walk from each other and sometimes they are so far away from a boss you’ll swear the developers are lifelong sadists. There’s actually one boss in DS2 I never beat because the run back to it is long AND difficult (approximately 10 minutes of pure misery). DS3 eases up on the runbacks, but there’s still too many of them. I also wish these games had an unlockable boss rush mode so I can easily replay my favorite fights. 😔
Dude, a Dark Souls boss rush mode would be SO cool. It was cool when Metroid Dread added it, too.
Actually, I know you’re not a huge fan of Metroid, but I think Dread absolutely nailed its difficulty. The game is hard af— easily the hardest in the series and it’s not even close— but there are invisible checkpoints before every major enemy encounter and tons of save stations, all of which eliminate the tedium of trekking back through the map every time you die. Obviously that wouldn’t work as well in a 3D RPG, but having checkpoints before boss fights and particularly difficult sections would do wonders for FromSoft’s games.
Actually, I know you’re not a huge fan of Metroid, but I think Dread absolutely nailed its difficulty. The game is hard af— easily the hardest in the series and it’s not even close— but there are invisible checkpoints before every major enemy encounter and tons of save stations, all of which eliminate the tedium of trekking back through the map every time you die. Obviously that wouldn’t work as well in a 3D RPG, but having checkpoints before boss fights and particularly difficult sections would do wonders for FromSoft’s games.
@Dunebot72 Yeah, I’d like the original Metroid a lot more if it didn’t reset health to 30 every time. Dread was great. Hoping MercurySteam gets to make another 2D entry because they nailed the gameplay.
Dunebot72
16 days ago
They’re good, just annoying as hell.