Continues and Lives - Drop Them?

[Nz17]

In the days of yore, continues and lives were a staple of the medium of video games and practically inseparable from arcade games. And why not when you were trying to get the most quarters out of players - you needed to limit the amount of play time and thus the law of the day was lives being a precious resource only extended by continues... for a price. And when people demanded the arcade experience at home the lives and continues went hand-in-hand. Besides, these were early days and the hardware was quite limited: having players starting over from the beginning of a stage or game was a perfectly practical way of making sure they got a lot of play hours out of their home video game purchases.

But not anymore. Not only has this style of gameplay been superseded, but players expect to play their games for a large number of hours in sprawling games environments. So why do we still have limited lives yet unlimited continues? In effect, that is unlimited lives. It is like the coins and other collectibles in a modern platformer like Mario - sure you could get enough of them to earn a 1UP, but why when you can just continue and get a small stockpile of lives instead?

So lives, continues, 1UPs, mans - drop them or keep them? When and where?

[Leo_A]

They were basically dropped many years ago. I don't have a clue when the last time I actually recieved a game over screen after using up my lifes and had to restart at the beginning of a game (Even if I had already continued).

[Robocop2]

Yeah they're long gone not to mention that finding a shooter in particular without regenerating health is a rarity unto its self.

[NayusDante]

I know the finite continue trend continued into the last generation, case in point: SHMUPS. This is why I never finished Gradius V, R-Type Final, Castle Shikigami 2, Ikaruga...

[Edmond Dantes]

Drop them? Sure.

Who do you want me to drop them on?

[skaar]

I miss gaming with a chance of failure.

Continues, you weakened a generation.

[MASTERWEEDO]

Games like Comix Zone were great, and if I remember correctly, you only had one life.

This whole, refusal to let people fail has gotten so far outta hand that some school let you retake tests until you pass.

[Emperor Megas]

I miss gaming with a chance of failure.

Continues, you weakened a generation.

This is why I never used continues in arcade style games. I always opted to just get better at the game, or go down trying.

I think games like Rygar: The Legendary Warrior (the arcade game) had it right. It would allow players to continue, but only to a certain point. The later stages you had to fight your way through.

[YoshiM]

I miss gaming with a chance of failure.

There is failure but it's not as catastrophic as it was with arcade-style games. Then again many of the games today are different to where it would be detrimental to the game if things just ended.

Could you imagine going into a deep, long mission, screw up and then have to start the whole thing over again? I was grumbling when I misunderstood the pop up in Batman:AA on PC about profiles. I lost 2 hours of play, forcing me to start the game over. Not a huge deal but my game time is very limited these days.

On a similar tangent-I think autosave really made people soft. I recently played Jedi Outcast on Xbox and was doing well until I flubbed up. Had to start the whole chapter over because I forgot to save..,.

[Jorpho]

Just as regenerating health is a cop-out for broken game mechanics, unlimited continues are a way to circumvent gameplay problems that get in the way of the experience, methinks. If a developer does not have the time to fine-tune everything such that one can get through on skill and practice alone without some variety of cheap death, unlimited continues are a solution.

[j_factor]

Limited lives is correct for some games. Unlimited lives is correct for others. Limited "lives", with unlimited "continues", is pretty wrong.

Does anybody remember when "The Future" was going to be games erasing your save file when you died? A few games did that but it never caught on.

[Gameguy]

I miss the LucasArts adventures where it was impossible to die or get stuck, those were a lot of fun.

For other story based games I get why they have unlimited continues now, why limit the amount of lives when you can save at any time? You just have to load up the save again which just takes time to do, unlimited lives just make it a less annoying experience.

As for arcade type games, a limited number of lives adds some forgiveness with the game so you don't lose right away with one mistake. But with unlimited continues you can keep progressing through the game, but usually your score gets reset. If you just want to play through the game unlimited continues are fine, but if you care about high scores you just won't use them.

With actual arcade games it was usually left up to the operator, the settings could be changed to limit the continues or leave unlimited continues. I could see why they would limit them, by forcing the player to keep starting over from the beginning it would cost them more money to play through the entire game, plus with some games people would lose interest in them if they saw them played fully to the end(like with Dragon's Lair). Other operators would just let people have unlimited lives so people could play as long as they want, as long as they feel like they're progressing they'll keep putting in more money.

[Nz17]

Continues and lives gone? Have none of you played Super Mario Galaxy? I've played that recently and they are definitely both in there. And Tatsunoko vs. Capcom, [Super] Street Fighter IV [3D Edition/Arcade Edition], and other fighters certainly have continue screens.

Though it is not the same as continues, save games act as a sort of continue, particularly with games where save points are restricted to certain areas. If we include that, the conversation definitely grows to be that modern games allow gamers to "continue" forever until they quit or win.

But what my original posts means is that the mechanic of lives or continues is broken in modern games and it is vestigial at best - especially if the games are so easy you are never in any peril of losing your stockpile of retries. If lives, continues, or restores are unlimited, it makes all of the others limitless. Let's say you have three lives per continue yet have unlimited continues: that's the same as unlimited lives in effect.

Games, in my opinion, should remove this leftover from the past where appropriate. Yes, some games should still keep these lives or continues if they are a precious resource or core to the game's style, but others should drop them as the relic they are. Otherwise they just take up valuable screen space and make us sit through unneeded "Game Over" and "Continue?" screens that take us right back to the last check point or save point. After all, if games like New Super Mario Bros. (DS) are so easy that I have 99 lives on my save why even mess with having lives... particularly as that game also has (wait for it) unlimited continues!

Short version: for most modern games, have failure take us back to the last check or save point - don't make us deal with extra cruft like reloading the save, level, or pressing start to continue.

[Jorpho]

I thought that Super Mario Galaxy actually had a pretty good implementation, similar as it is to Super Mario World: your lives are not saved in your save file, and they only allow you to keep respawning at a midway point. There's still suspense, but there's also not too much at stake.

[Baloo]

Limited lives is correct for some games. Unlimited lives is correct for others. Limited "lives", with unlimited "continues", is pretty wrong.

Agreed. The ONLY time I'd agree with limited lives and unlimited continues would be 80s arcade games on Free Play. Everything else, fuck it.

Unless of course it's Ninja Gaiden. For that game you NEED unlimited continues.

[MarioMania]

I miss those days

[BlastProcessing402]

Things like limited continues are why I needed things like Game Genies/Sharks back in the day. I love games, but I'm no super gaming savant. Since the modern generation killed such devices by whining about "but teh online ch33t0rz!" I really have no desire to play any games where you can't either save your progress or get unlimited continues. Fortunately it's not an issue in most of the games that interest me.