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[Vlad]

Viewtiful Joe is a beautiful offender of this. I like it, because each time I'd get farther and do better, so it felt rewarding. Up until the time where you have to fight all the bosses back to back. Oy

I guess I'm just weird, as I found the bosses in VJ to be of the "pretty easy once you know the trick" variety. I had so much trouble on the bosses when I fought them the first time around that by the time I actually did beat them, I had their patterns pretty much nailed. The only boss at that point who didn't really have an easy pattern was Alastor, and you didn't have to fight him in that level, anyway. I'm guessing a lot of that was because I put most of my money towards buying new moves and stuff instead of health, so I was pretty much forced to learn the most efficient ways to beat the bosses.

Of course, Fire Leo was a bitch and a half to beat, but once you got to him, dying didn't put you back at the beginning of the level, so it wasn't too bad.

As far as the topic at hand goes, I don't have as much of a problem with replaying sections of a game as I do with games that make you sit through long, unskippable cutscenes if you die. The worst offender in recent memory was Paper Mario 2, which not only had a long cutscene before the final fight, but a HUGE one in the middle of the fight, all of it unskippable.

 

[evilromero]

Wait a minute. There's a fucking save point before every mother fucking boss. What are you bitching about? And someone mentioned backtracking- I think this has been discussed before but I'll say it again here. There really is no backtracking until the very end when you go collect the final dungeon keys using the Hunter Visor. And that is a pretty simple quest (takes less than an hour to get them all- about 30 minutes when you teleport).

About escort missions- yeah RE4 was guilty to a point. But fucking ICO was the worst of them all (see ya Rogue Squad). I mean, I never want to play ICO again because of that stress and pressure. It's just not something I look forward to.

 

[ghibli99]

Paper Mario 2 has some of the longest dialogue passages I've ever seen for a final boss battle sequence. Takes forever. I feel bad for anyone who dies during the later part of this battle. I was late meeting up with some friends one night because I underestimated how long this would take...

 

[Limedust]

I was about to say that too... While reading the first post, I flashbacked to the first Ninja Gaiden for the Nintendo. Or this really annoying helicopter game for the Atari. Lose all your lives, then bam! GAME OVER. And by "game over" they mean, "Start over from the beginning you loser! You were on the final boss? Too bad! You shouldn't have sucked!"

I thought the exact same when I read the first post. And Ninja Gaiden would boot you back to the beginning of the WORLD, not just the stage, for dying against the last boss, Jaquio.

 

[Future]

It's part of that old school design that most people can't deal with anymore. This design used to work, partly because we were kids and had endless patience. But it also worked because many great old school games were simplistic, and built around mechanics and patterns that were fun at their most basic level, so it didn't feel tedious to repeat. Plus levels and worlds went by quickly because these games were short, so you were constantly feeling progression and seeing new art and enemies even if you started over.

That said, don't play Ninja Gaiden or DMC3. IMO the WORST offenders of making you repeat lots of shit just to get to the point where you will probably die

 

[Jupiter_Shrooms]

huh.. somebody dying during Alpha Blog ? That's quite a feat by itself.
That guy's so easy... just charge a super missile and let it it rip when he charges at you with his mouth open. You can even let yourself be hit.. only takes a few hits and he's down.

That's what I did. I think he gets faster as he nears death so trying to hit him AND dodge at the same time gets harder and harder. I kept missing (because anything other than a direct hit is deflected). Just plant your feet, charge your super missle and let loose. he'll die before you will.

 

[Version 3.0]

If it's any consolation, that's the only time where there's not a save point right before the boss (and of course, there actually is, you just can't reach it once the bottom opens). If you want, you can do half the area, save, then do the easier half and go for the boss.

 

[Version 3.0]

Also, please tell me this is your sister and I can have her phone number!