Obviously, respawning when you die and infinite lives make games too easy (and less enjoyable because of it - look at Strider 2) but where should the balance be made? Granted, Castlevania has always been on the better side of the issue, given that you always had unlimited continues (and a password system in later games) but isn't it immensely annoying to have to go through that stupid clock tower for the 48th after dying at the werewolf in Castlevania Chronicles?

Is this necessary for keeping up the trademark difficulty of the series? Or is this simply a throwback to the days of old when games had to be kept short due to memory constraints, and made to last longer through absurd difficulty? Are the concept of "lives" outdated? (Symphony of the Night, Circle of the Moon and the two N64 games didn't use them.)

The primary inspiration of this topic has to do with PC gaming - most PC games allow you to save the game pretty much anywhere. This is something most PC gamers tend to prefer - read most any magazine that covers computers games. Whenever they review a port of a console game, they'll often point out that the concept of "save points" are flawed. Yet classic games like Doom still remain a challenge, even though you can save at any given time. What makes console games different?

Personally, I'd like to eliminate the whole concept of lives and make respawn points fairly close together. Saving at any moment does suck a bit too much of the challenge (most people who use emulators consider save states to be cheating) but I really just think that throwing players back large distances is a cheap method of lengthening a game, and something that video gaming has outgrown.

I also think that PC gamers, being aimed towards an older crowd, simply don't have the patience to replay sections of games (I know it's something I've lost over the years.) I don't have hours a day to spend playing video games any more - I'm lucky if I get an hour or two in here or there. I want to get the most out of my gaming in that period of time.

To answer the given question, it must be realised that there are currently two types of Castlevania games. Arcade (linear) and Adventure. The Arcade style games refer to the Original, Castlevania 3, 4, X, etc. Adventure implies a more free roaming type such as CV2, Symphony, and Circle of the Moon. For each of these types of games, the focus is entirely different and thusly must be approached differently. The old school side scroller games, in particular Castlevania, have been about the challenge of defeating the game. Granted, that is the goal of ANY game, but in Castlevania and this genre of sidescrollers, there is no other objective. In this case, the very nature of the game implies the need for a challenge. In order to keep that level high, but not impossible, it is downright necessary to have have a set amount of lives. One thing these games feature that the other style does not is the concept of instant death i.e. pits and spikes. In Symphony, there are NO bottomless pits and while spikes cause damage, they are not instantly lethal. These simple inclusions demand a perfection of play that most gamers do not posess. One misjump (or a knock from a bat or Medusa head) result in a need for a restarting point. Keeping a game from being too hard due to tiny decisions like wether or not to allow infinite continues can make or break the enjoyment from a player's level. Super Ghouls and Ghosts is a perfect example of this. 2 hits. Dead. Start at checkpoint. 3 lives. Dead. Start at beginning of the stage. 3 continues. Restart game. It all results in a game that is so insanely challenging it's almost not worth playing though. Castlevania has always been about challenge and, with the exception of the first game, it has always allowed infinite continues. This is so the player CAN complete the game and thusly add to the enjoyment level. So in the matter of this style of game, yes: all of these things are necessary: lives, save points, and continues. The adventure styled games are a different issue. The goal may be the same, but the focus is completely different. The focus here is on sheer exploration. The enjoyment comes from defeating the enemy to explore a new world. Many of the world's best games are based on this principle. Mario 64, all the Zelda games, Final Fantasy, and the Metroid series all have the adventure in common though the application is radically different. To simple kill Dracula in Symphony and be done is to miss the point of the game. Why else would they add the statistic "%age done"? The goal is to explore new areas and discover every little secret. Thusly, while challenge is important, it is much less of a focus than the arcade style. The challenges lie in finding all of the other nooks and crannies. Symphony is a great example of this point. In comparison to the old Castlevania games, the first castle was a walk in the park in terms of simplicity.It is entirely possible for an experienced player to defeat the first castle with a minimum of effort. The second castle, is a different issue. And thusly demonstrating my point, the hardest boss in the game is the Egyptian gaurding the poison mist. It is an item in the game that is completely unnecessary to complete the game. In fact, even the section of the castle he's in is completely out of the way from the objectives, which I might add are also in fairly easy to get to places so that the gamer who rushes to "complete" the game are satisfied. So, for this style of game, it is completely unnecessary for the system of "lives" of old. The game just has to be designed so that the save points are reasonably spaced from the true challenges. It all comes down to the style of game. -R. Brian Wilson

I think one of the most important points in this letter is that it points out a game that totally fails in its execution of respawn points: the Ghosts and Goblins games. If I remember correctly, most of them will either start you right at the beginning of a given level, or right in the middle. And given that the game is tooth-pullingly hard...I honestly think the games can only be truly enjoyed by those with an ample supply of black leather and cat o' nine tails.

The other major point is the emphasis on exploration. Symphony of the Night succeeds as a game simply because it's just FUN to play - there's so much to see and do that it doesn't really even need to pose a challenge. This seems to be the biggest difference between the so-called "old school" and "new school" gaming.

well about the topic , it took me 1 month of playing the ex68000 emulator just to get past that wolf. i was able after 2 weeks to get up to her with 1 guy and at least 3/4 health. it took me 2 more weeks just to beat her. i kicked my computer ,screamed, and everything. massive frustration. but after all was said and done and i killed her that 1 glorious day it was well worth it. i have since done it a few times but the first time was still the best. so i guess if they make a game that hard it will pull them (the player) away from that game , but if you love to play that certain game that much and you want to advance there is no better high than to complete that part. you will feel like a million dollors. so now i can say HOW MANY PEOPLE HAVE BEATEN THAT WOLF? -Mike

Undoubtedly, the ecstasy of completing a difficult task is one of the biggest things that classic Castlevania games have going for it.

I, for one, was always extremely happy that in the original Castlevania, when you ran out of lives, you started right before Dracula. And even if you hadn't, level six was pretty easy. Even though I spent hours at that part, I found it was a fair restart point, and didn't find it hard when I kept dying over and over, only to try again and eventually, succeed. I think the concept of respawn points elicits an unconscious fear amongst the gamer - that if you don't kill the enemy THIS time, you're going to have to go through the arduous, time consuming task of completing parts of the previous level over and over. This is what I think the Resident Evil games were going for. By limiting the number of saves, it raises the stakes as to what happens after you die. You may not simply restart a few minutes prior - you could be forced to repeat large portions of the game.

I'm not a fan of this kind of game design, but you can't argue that it's not effective.

The idea of "lives" in a Castlevania game is fine, as long as the actual concept of the game is more akin to the original games. For instance, the games which haven't used lives (CV64/LoD, SOTN, COTM) have been anything but traditional Castlevania titles. Classics such as Chronicles would quite possibly be ruined if it were possible to save anywhere, as opposed to restarting a segment of the stage over again. The majority of Castlevania fans will argue that, along with keeping the series "Old-School" and in 2d, the other main aspect of the series is the level of skill which the player has. This means that the ability to save practically anywhere would be insulting to the player's intelligence. Come on, let's face it...Castlevania was never really "newbie-friendly" in the first place. -Velguader Sigma/Alex

While this makes similar points to the above letter, there is one other thing: the Castlevania 64 games, in many places, is structured like a traditional CV game. If you die, you simply start at the last save crystal - heck, you can even turn the game off and come back. Now imagine if the game DID have lives, and if you ran out of them...well, you'd have to start the whole level over again. Given that some of the levels grew quite large and intricate, this probably would've caused quite the number of destroyed controllers.

By requiring players to play a level over and over, the designers would often have to make the stages fairly short, limiting the scope of a given level. Whether that's a good thing or bad thing is up for you to decide (would you rather have large, similarly themed levels or a bigger variety of short levels, like in most traditional Castlevania games?)

What's to say that you couldn't make enemies even MORE difficult than before if you to restart them right in front of a boss chamber rather than at the beginning of a level? I noticed this a lot in the Gameboy Advance game Gradius Galaxies. Even at the final boss areas, every time you kill one of them, when you respawn, you don't have to kill the previous forms again. Some of these bosses are quite the bitch - if I had to kill them from scratch every time, I'd drive myself nuts and probably stop playing.

One of the worst re-spawn places is the beginning of Blk 5-0C in CV3. So you don't have to look that up, it's the first door you come to after climbing the red brick tower and crossing several rotating platforms to the left. At the beginning of this awful block is an axe-knight. Upon climbing the stairs, you are assaulted by a multitide of stacked and solitary bone pillars, each of which shoot two fireballs each in tandem. The only exit is up, and that leads to several rooftops that take you to the Frankenstein Monster. If your character runs into something most unfortunate, it's back to the afore-mentioned door. Another is starting at the beginning of Blk A-02 in CV3. That's the room under the room with the three pendulums. Even if the last incarnation of the Dark Lord defeats your character, you start over here. Note that this only applies to the U.S. version of the game. In the Japanese version, the base of the final staircase leading up to Dracula is a re-spawn point.

Not much to add here - just here to stir up some memories. Personally, the worst memory I have of respawn points comes from Ninja Gaiden. If you die fighting the last boss in stage 6-4, you're sent all of the way back to 6-1...forcing you to replay 6-2, one of the most hideous, frustrating levels in all of gaming existence.

Well, the importance of respawn spots is something very immense. As you stated, they must be positioned strategically, so that the game offers a challenge and on the flip-side, so that the game is not so challenging as to make the player balk at revisiting an entire segment of a level. Granted for some, going back through that segment of the clock tower to fight the werewolf in Castlevania Chronicles can be annoying. I believe this is where Konami can be strategic. Not only in this point of the game, or even only in this game. But Konami can, strategically speaking test restart points and move them according to the learning curve that is needed to pass that area. For example, a certain learning curve is needed to be good enough to pass a certain part of a level. Well, if you were die at a particularly difficult of a level, it would be prudent for Konami or any game developer for that matter to start the player at the beginning of that area again. Then, in each subsequent, the player gains in skill. This is through repition, repition, and more repition. Another point of positioning a player respawn point farther away from the goal, is the player's sense of accomplishment from having passed that area because he/she knows that area is difficult. I do hope that my above points make some sense. Now, as for the concept of "lives." Indeed in more recent entries in the Castlevania Series, this concept has not seen much showing, as per your examples of "Castlevania: Symphony of the Night," "Castlevania: Circle of the Moon," and the 2 N64 entries of Castlevania: "Castlevania 64," and "Castlevania 64: Legacy of Darkness." One must also not forget the Castlevania title that never saw the light of day (night?): "Castlevania: Resurrection." This concept of not using the "lives" system may be from the uprising of game saving on memory cards. What is the point of having lives if you can just go back and load your game anyway? Another factor maybe that the concept of "lives" may seem to unrealistic to newer gamers. They may think: In real life, you only get to live once, why does this game portray someone with many lives? This is probably due to the fact that today's gamers are more picky about realism in games than ever. -Lewis Phinney (Castlevania Master) (Vampire Hunter/Killer)

The other thing that primarily sparked the idea of this column is the PS2 game Maximo. Despite the fact that you can save between levels (for a price), the game still clings onto the concepts of lives and, even more moronically, limited continues. You have to earn extra continues as you play through the game. What's the point? Why not just reload the game? Why force the player to find ways about this bit of idiotic game design? Granted, Castlevania: Bloodlines is guilty of this too - what was the point of limited continues when you can just put in a password?

And the concept of repetition is certainly one the main ideas that the game designers had with the idea of respawn points. Surely, the 201st time you play through a given level, you're going to be extremely skilled, but will you still be having fun by that point?

Hey, I've been a castlevania fan all my life (literally) and I have played and beat every single Castlevania game with the exception of Circle of the Moon.. (Blasted Game Boy Advance had to break!!) I notice that in the recent Castlevania games, the difficulty has been made so that even a little six year old could beat it! I remember the days of Castlevania 3 (by far the hardest Castlevania of them all) when you had to navigate those harsh jumps with the medusa heads and the crumbling floor and not to mention the guards with the poles. I'd always die at that level, and yet, each time I'd die, I would curse and what-not, but each time I did I was motivated to do even better. I guess Konami had that kind of thing in mind, sort of like a gratification thing in which they WANT you to play the game to the end. What was wrong with Strider 2, was how it was too easy. It didn't prove a real challenge.. whats the point of playing when you have infinite lives, infinite continues, and near infinite health? And yet, you always had a special attack every respawn point. That sucked real bad. My final thought is that the Castlevania series has always set a new standard for side-scrolling platform games. The difficulty and playability can't be matched. Most of the time, the difficulty was only caused by a person who doesn't time his or her jumps right. -Vampiro170

Right - part of the fun of the Castlevania games is trying to figure out strategies to beat a certain section or a boss. If you remove the fear of death, what's the point of devising a strategy?

I'd have to disagree with with difficulty being caused by the mistiming of jumps though. Only until the most recent incarnations, the controls in the Castlevania games have been pretty stiff. How many times did you die by the humps of those horrible Igor-thingies before you finally got ahold of it?

And your point about recent CV games being able to be beaten by a six year old...well, that's a good segue for the next topic.

The response has actually turned out pretty well so far, so here's a new one, similarly based on the Castlevania series difficulty - in the interview with the Castlevania Chronicles producer, he said that he prefers games that anyone can beat, so anyone can get their money's worth. Now, other than the real diehard fans - how many of you out there have actually beaten Castlevania Chronicles on the Original Mode? (personally, I find the Arrange mode is one of the only ways to make the game really playable - the Original version really steps over that "ridiculous" line a bit too many times for my personal pleasure.)

So, I ask this: what do you prefer? A game that simply focuses on exploration and keeps the difficulty at a minimum, or one that'll constantly test your gaming skills? Or would you prefer somewhere inbetween (I'd like to think Circle of the Moon qualifies as a good medium ground.) Send your responses in to kkalata@ramapo.edu.