/vr/ - Retro Games

Seems like basic punishment by moving you backwards from where you were.

To make the N64 babies feel like their games actually have some sort of difficulty, of course that's not counting the artificial difficulty of faulty controls and and awkward camera angles.
>inb4 I'm reported a dozen times in the next 30 seconds

This is a bad thread, but in several stages that had subsections (Inside the volcano in bowser's lava whatever, on the slide in tall tall mountain), re-entering the stage after losing a life would return you to that subsection. Naturally, game-overing would force you to re-start the whole level.

Pretty much only for the Bowser levels. I said as much to my girlfriend a few months ago, since it was her first time playing.

>>2374268
>my girlfriend

IIRC you'd lost your unsaved progress if you lose all your lives.

Not a compelling reason, I've gotta admit.

>>2374327
The game asks if you want to save anytime you get a star or beat a Bowser level though. There is literally no data to lose by getting a game over.

In reality, the game over system was probably just a relic of the SNES days that carried over quite poorly because everyone was still experimenting with this whole new 3D gaming business.

>>2374315
Yup. Doctor and nurse, living the cliche.

>>2374331
This. Lives and Game Overs are antiquated concepts, serving no purpose besides personal motivation and self-inflicted guidelines like a no-death run.

Not necessarily a bad thing, though.

>>2374391
They never made sense out of a coin-op to begin with.

>>2374342
dad?

>>2374154

It's true, lives were a completely outdated concept by this point. It's the same with games like Banjo and DK64. Maybe if they gave you a starting stock of 100 and said if you lose them all then you lose your save file it would have a purpose. Other than that, it was just a hangover from the old days.

>>2374443
>Maybe if they gave you a starting stock of 100 and said if you lose them all then you lose your save file it would have a purpose.

That fucking Prinny game on the PSP, holy shit. I thought it was a joke, but the joke was on me

>>2374394
Agreed. Every time you die, you should be forced to restart the whole game.

>>2374154
Incorrect.
Losing a life ejected you from a painting.
Game-overing ejects you from the castle completely.

Besides, you have to deal with Mario's dumb face and the load-file screen again. Isn't that punishment enough?

>>2374443
Well, no.
The reason that lives were pointless was that you exited the level either way. If there were checkpoints, or you kept your coins, or something, then the lives would have a purpose other then saving you the time it takes to reload and run back to the painting.

>>2374450
now that's good design

>>2374450
soooo Mario rogue-like?

>>2374902
It's barely a punishment at all. "Oh no I have to spend maybe 2 minutes max getting back to the painting"

It's so minor it's so minor it's hard to even think of it as a punishment.

>>2374945
You have no idea what roguelike means.

>>2374960
Sigh I figured you might be able to read between the lines a bit. I know that its not procedurally generated levels amd turn based movement. I was talking about the permadeath aspect of a roguelike.

>>2374417
Probably not.

>Completing the game 100% grants you 100 lives.
Even as a kid I called bullshit on this.

>>2375180
every kid did you doublenigger

I always thought the lives system in Banjo kazooie was complete bullshit.If you loose all your health or you fall in a bottomless pit (damn you rusty bucket bay engine room) you start all the way back at the entrance of the level. That wouldn't be so bad, but you don't get to keep the notes or jinjos that you had found until before you died. In the end those banjo trophies ended up being pointless. In Banjo-Tooie they outright removed the lives system

What perplexes me even more is how the new 2D Mario platformers still have the lives and just completely drown you in them. Like, after playing for only an hour you've probably already collected like 30 or something.

>>2374945
>>2374960
>Mario roguelike
Actually exists, consult Google

>>2375327
I've watched people struggle with newer marios

It's pretty uncomfortable to watch

>>2374154
>Losing lives isn't punishment

The lives system is, now, an outdated concept. Back then, I'm sure your child minds didn't think twice about it.

It goes like this:
The 3D era was a fresh and unexplored territory in games back then, so to keep any familiarity from the transition, they left some things in, like a lives-counter (that also didn't carry over from a save, not unlike SMW). Nintendo knew that 3D would be unfamiliar to players as well, so they helped pioneer other concepts, like the camera being a separate character (Lakitu) for you to control, since a camera itself was an unfamiliar concept.

>TL;DR
To maintain any continuity, they left some ideas in.

>>2375697
Nah, I don't buy it. I'm pretty sure Miyamoto would cut out a feature if he knew it was pointless. He had already removed lives in Zelda, so it wasn't something unthinkable at the time.

>>2375851
Getting a 1-Up is a staple part of any Mario game, outside of spin-offs. I think that the only real reason there are still lives in Mario games, is simply because of tradition.

>>2375327
Not just the Mario platformers. The DKCR games as well. Dunno about the newer Raymans.

I've no idea what they're for.

>>2374154
lives are a concept from arcades that has stayed with video games for a long time, for better or worse

>>2375327
>>2375887
You drown in lives in the SNES Country games, too. I replayed 2 and beat it in two sittings last year. When I took my first break I had 35 lives (all of which are lost when you load anyway).

The only time lives even come in is in the snow world in DKC 1. Generally, you are looking at having to beat several of those annoying barrel levels on only a few lives if you have to load, so the risk is there of having to redo several levels.

>>2375851
Well yeah, because they're two different genres altogether. Platforming games to this day still have a "lives" counter.

Look at how nerdy all you guys are omg who even cares

you're discussing this like its a united nations issue top kek

>>2375180
well, getting 120 stars opens up the cannon outside. if you launch yourself on top of the castle, Yoshi is there to max out your lives and give you the weird triple jump

>>2375327
They give them to you because the newer mario games can progress in harder difficulties especially on special levels

>>2375336
>I've watched people struggle with newer marios
>It's pretty uncomfortable to watch

My mother just barely can beat the first level of New Super Mario Bros Wii...

I wonder if younger players are any better

>>2375327
I'm fairly certain that the New Super Mario Bros games have a save system similar to Super Mario World in that you can only save after key events (beating a castle/fortress or unlocking a gate). So if you're really shitty at the game, losing all your lives will force you to replay a few levels.

>>2376356
yes. at towers and castles, or ghost houses.

until you beat the game, then you unlock the "save anywhere, anytime" feature.

It is pretty obnoxious when you're speed running and blowing through the game, not saving, not collecting coins, and you make enough mistakes to warrant a game over and have to start over.

That being said, I usually don't speed run Mario. I like to fuck around, so I always have an obnoxious amount of lives in the NSMB games, especially since the life counter doesn't reset. That and there are more coins to collect, and 1 ups, so lives are just flat out easier to come by.

I can't believe no one has mentioned that lives serve as a way to hand the controller to your friend or sibling or whatever. When you die, hand the controller to your buddy. If you had to share the console with your brothers, you would switch off after a game over (or time limit, whichever came first).

>>2376219
>>>/v/

>>2374154
>Ctrl-F
>No Wolfenstein
The lives in that game were fucking useless, because you could save anywhere and the console versions had checkpoints at every levels. Also, when you lost a life, you lost all your weapons too, so you'd be actually better off reloading your save.

>>2375887
>Dunno about the newer Raymans.

Neither Rayman Origins nor Legends have a lives system.

>>2377780
Ah, beat me too it. Score was also kinda silly in wolf.

good

>>2377780
You were supposed to beat episodes on the starting lives.

>>2374391
Dark Souls would disagree with you.

>>2374450
> This game is hard!
To compensate though, the game would need to be a bit more reasonable with lives. Not too much, but to make it a tad more comfortable.

>>2376023
DKC drowns you in lives because the levels are difficult. It's the game's gimmick.

>>2381010
Re-visiting antiquated game mechanic conventions and coming off as "fresh" is cheating. It's similar to how a lot of Indie studios come off as "innovative" for ripping off fun older games that didn't meet mainstream success back in the day.

>>2374154
FUCK YOU ITS NOT CALLED THE FUCKING HUBWORLD, ITS THE FUCKING CASTLE. YOU GO BACK TO THE CASTLE, NOT THE FUCKING HUBWORLD. THAT SOUNDS RETARDED. FUCK YOU, STAY AWAY FROM MY CHILDHOOD

>>2374443
Banjo probably has the most redundant lives system ever, considering you basically have to replay the entire level sans a few jiggies if you lose a life anyway and the Game Over screen plays whenever you save and quit.

I don't mind how more recent Sonic games have done it where losing a life means going back to the previous checkpoint, and losing all your lives takes you back to the very beginning of the level. Do better in the easier stages and you build up more lives to use in the harder stages. Seems reasonable in a game with no quick save/quick load.

>>2385008
Yeah.
Also, bosses.

>>2375887
In the Retro Studios Donkey Kong games lives are utterly useless in the main game but in multiplayer they're the only real way to punish the players for dying. The only other ways to handle failing a stage would be to have one player permanently out of play after dying once, which would be a shitty trade-off to keeping everyone in the action, or to only kick them out if both die at the same time, which isn't very common and would be easy to plan around.

Keeping it around was a good choice.