In this port will they take lives?

[Korcut Olmes]

In the infamous full-price port with DENUVO of Sonic Colors, the only good thing about it was that they took lives and that is something that is appreciated... Do you think they will do the same in this game?

[NBOX21]

Honestly, I really didn't like this change. Not because it seemed unnecessary for games like these, but because they gave us no option to switch to the old fashioned system (Crash 4 gave players a modern mode and a classic mode, the latter restoring the lives system) Sonic Origins had both, but the classic mode there was stuck in 4/3 with no way to play in widescreen like the mobile versions did.

I really hope they either keep the lives system intact, or give players the option to choose whether they want it or not. Perhaps this could be a form of difficulty setting where Easy mode provides unlimited lives but Normal mode uses the old lives system.

[xanderthefallenone]

The demo at big events seemed to have gotten rid of lives by default with an option to turn them on in the settings menu

[Ikagura]

A life system is pretty nullified by the fact you cannot have a true game over.

[M.G]

Originally posted by Ikagura:

A life system is pretty nullified by the fact you cannot have a true game over.

The life system has been null for years, it's only maintained to generate psychological tension (and it works very well), so I think it should be kept (even Mario always have it).

It's like the souls system in Souls Like games (that are basically modern 3D Metroidvanias), people were used to lose all their progress and be sent to the last save point upon death, but now you keep your progress in the story, all your itens and you can even keep your souls if you recover them... but people feel like it's more punitive because of the anxiety of not being able to get their souls back

[Ikagura]

Originally posted by M.G.:

Originally posted by Ikagura:

A life system is pretty nullified by the fact you cannot have a true game over.

The life system has been null for years, it's only maintained to generate psychological tension (and it works very well), so I think it should be kept (even Mario always have it).

It's like the souls system in Souls Like games (that are basically modern 3D Metroidvanias), people were used to lose all their progress and be sent to the last save point upon death, but now you keep your progress in the story, all your itens and you can even keep your souls if you recover them... but people feel like it's more punitive because of the anxiety of not being able to get their souls back

It's a remnant of the arcade era but game overs don't even punish you that much.

In fact it's more tedious to be sent back to the title screen and having to browse menus than just having a restart.

Mario Wonders didn't need a life system (they even removed the chronometer).

Souls like are not the same kind of game.

[M.G]

Originally posted by Ikagura:

It's a remnant of the arcade era but game overs don't even punish you that much.

I see this being said a lot everywhere, but it's not true. The life system appeared on computer games at the same time as it did in the arcades.

In the beginning there was only multiplayer games between two human players, and the player who lost all their lives first was defeated.
Then came the option of playing against a CPU, and then the option to compete indirectly with other players through your score (technically they were still multiplayer games, but each player had their turn)

As games began to get longer they became truly singleplayer, with many removing the scoring system but keeping the lives system to generate tension, to have something at stake that they didn't want to lose, forcing the player to think before acting.
Otherwise, they could try as many times as they wanted until they succeeded by pure luck, only to die in the next stage because they didn't learn anything from the previous one.

Mario Wonders restored the direct competion factor older games had, so instead of the chronometer you can literally race other players to the end.

Souls is just your "regular old school game", it wants you to observe and memorize patterns just like old school 8 and 16 bit games.

A Souls boss, is just literally a 8bit Megaman boss modernized.

[Ikagura]

Originally posted by M.G:

Originally posted by Ikagura:

It's a remnant of the arcade era but game overs don't even punish you that much.

I see this being said a lot everywhere, but it's not true. The life system appeared on computer games at the same time as it did in the arcades.

"Arcade era" encompassed games on any support, even on consoles, this is just a naming convention like the 3D era despite 3D games existing way before the PlayStation.

I was talking about the era and not games on arcade only.

Originally posted by M.G:

In the beginning there was only multiplayer games between two human players, and the player who lost all their lives first was defeated.
Then came the option of playing against a CPU, and then the option to compete indirectly with other players through your score (technically they were still multiplayer games, but each player had their turn).

You're talking about the very early video game epoch, I am talking about the main arcade golden era.

Originally posted by M.G:

As games began to get longer they became truly singleplayer, with many removing the scoring system but keeping the lives system to generate tension, to have something at stake that they didn't want to lose, forcing the player to think before acting.
Otherwise, they could try as many times as they wanted until they succeeded by pure luck, only to die in the next stage because they didn't learn anything from the previous one.

I do agree that a score system isn't needed for many games (they are just vestigial or just cosmetic) but the life system is merely implemented to make your game longer and make the player replay the early levels much more times (which is basically why most retro games have more memorable first two/three levels since the devs worked the most on them and the later/end levels were often rushed with a basic ending text).

And this is only assuming the devs knew how to properly balance difficulty and make the game challenging yet not frustrating.

Too many devs of that era made their games painfully hard towards the end because they knew that it was the ideal way to make the player replay them (die & retry was a game philosophy that felt cheap most of the time since it was more about pure memorization than having skillful reflexes so that even a not too bad player couldn't beat a level because of traps that had no clues whatsoever).

Mario Wonders restored the direct competion factor older games had, so instead of the chronometer you can literally race other players to the end.

Yet was heavily criticized because you couldn't pick up or jump on the other players like in New Super Mario Bros Wii/U which was the basis of competition.

Wonders with the weird crown that makes the camera focus on a player is really not the best idea in the game.

Also it should've had a solo time attack mode.

Souls is just your "regular old school game", it wants you to observe and memorize patterns just like old school 8 and 16 bit games.

Please stop with the meme about SoulBorne being hardcore, they're not. They have old school elements but they have too many modern game design to be truly retro.

You cannot game over in this game and you can simply farm souls if you want.

A Souls boss, is just literally a 8bit Megaman boss modernized.

No.

[GrimAtrament]

why what point would it make? lives barely mattered in modern game only sonic advance series kept the tradition of having to restart the entire game after losing all lives, but even that stopped at advance 3.

only reason Retro sonic games had lives was to pad out the games length artificially. even the Origins cut that out for the most part since there wasn't really any point to them.

[Ikagura]

Originally posted by GrimAtrament:

why what point would it make? lives barely mattered in modern game only sonic advance series kept the tradition of having to restart the entire game after losing all lives, but even that stopped at advance 3.

only reason Retro sonic games had lives was to pad out the games length artificially. even the Origins cut that out for the most part since there wasn't really any point to them.

Absolutely.

Even better: Sonic 1 and 2 were quite easily trivialized if you played the Special Stages solely to get all 50 rings so you get a Continue that basically gave you three more lives easily.

Sonic Advance does not make you restart the level from Act 1 like in 3&K?

Anyway, even Mario games starting from World became much more lenient.

[NBOX21]

Originally posted by Ikagura:

Sonic Advance does not make you restart the level from Act 1 like in 3&K?

Sonic Advance 1 let you restart from the level you reached if you turn the game off or reach the Game Over screen, even if you were in Act 2 - it does not send you back to Act 1 like Advance 2, Rush 1 or Mania did. Advance 3 of course had the HUB areas that not only let you play each act in any order you want, but also auto-saved your progress upon beating an act, making it a lot less punishing by comparison.

The Wii version of Sonic Unleashed had a very interesting idea for a lives system, however. Instead of gaining extra lives as you play through the levels, you'll find permanent 1-ups from the bonus areas that unlock with enough Sun and Moon medals. Exiting, resetting or beating a stage, as well as a Game Over, simply resets your lives counter to what it was at the start of the level. I could actually see this system be used in future games that decide to adopt the old school tradition of limited lives.

[Ikagura]

Originally posted by NBOX21:

Originally posted by Ikagura:

Sonic Advance does not make you restart the level from Act 1 like in 3&K?

Sonic Advance 1 let you restart from the level you reached if you turn the game off or reach the Game Over screen, even if you were in Act 2 - it does not send you back to Act 1 like Advance 2, Rush 1 or Mania did. Advance 3 of course had the HUB areas that not only let you play each act in any order you want, but also auto-saved your progress upon beating an act, making it a lot less punishing by comparison. :Arcadetoken:

The Wii version of Sonic Unleashed had a very interesting idea for a lives system, however. Instead of gaining extra lives as you play through the levels, you'll find permanent 1-ups from the bonus areas that unlock with enough Sun and Moon medals. Exiting, resetting or beating a stage, as well as a Game Over, simply resets your lives counter to what it was at the start of the level. I could actually see this system be used in future games that decide to adopt the old school tradition of limited lives. :TYPaw:

A bit cheating for Advance 1 (also it may damage the cartridge if repeated)?

I am find with Advance giving you a level select from any point of the game because it gives the possibility of a challenge while allowing newbies to restart only the Zone and not the game.

Unleashed SD having these "perma-lives" was actually quite a good idea but when I played it for the first time I didn't take care so I got issues with the later levels (especially with the Werehog when platforming gives you 0 drop-shadows).

People can say what they want about Unwiished but they cannot deny how good the Gaia Temples actually were (despite being the only 3D hubs but then again I don't care that much about them because I wanna speak to the NPC to get to the next main level, not having to do a mini platforming section or farming medals to do that).

In a way it's like how Smash 4 and Ultimate's Classic Mode gives you 3 lives per levels and you need to manage them instead of having the choice to have 5 instead of 3 (why?) while also having to not lose them all to get to the secret bosses.

[Alder613]

Honestly, the DRM in the Steam version was the least of Colors Ultimate's problems...