The game over screen is the definitive sign of failure. The price you pay for failing to succeed is not only starting a level over from scratch, but before doing so, you're greeted with those two oh-so-familiar words.
YouTuber RelaxAlax, puts out some quality content. If you aren't familiar with him, he's got a whole series called Know Your Moves that dives into the history behind the moves of characters in the Super Smash Bros. series. He and his cat are a hoot. Those videos are the ones that really made him blow up, but that isn't all he's known for. He's also got some well made videos that aren't Smash related. I don't always agree with Alax, and one of his latest videos, Game Overs Need to Die is one of those times where I find myself respectfully disagreeing with him.
Game overs have been a part of gaming since forever. If you didn't get a game over on that arcade machine, how else would they get more quarters out of you? When gaming shifted from arcades to homes, much of the arcade design philosophy was brought to home gaming, including that freakishly hard difficulty and you guessed it, game overs.
Gaming has changed significantly over the decades. Some games don't even have game overs anymore and some don't even bother with the life system. I'm perfectly fine with some games choosing to omit game overs. My enjoyment of Rayman Origins and Super Mario Odyssey was not impacted negatively in the slightest just because I didn't see a game over screen. However, I don't feel that game overs should disappear entirely and the very thought that they should seems very extreme to me.
If you haven't watched the above video, Alax compares the restart time after dying in Celeste and Super Mario Maker 2. Celeste is a room based platformer that relies on quick reaction time and serves up more player deaths than there are blades of grass in your back yard. Because of the design of Celeste, you're thrust back into the action very quickly. The game is a fast paced platformer. Having game overs, a life system and slow respawn time would be counter intuitive to the game's design. Super Mario Maker 2 is a level editor in the numerous Super Mario game styles, which are slower paced games. Yes, you can go fast and some levels can be crafted around speed running and moving at a brisk pace. At the end of the day, while Celeste and Super Mario Maker 2 are both platformers, they are very different platformers,
From the video, it looks like the issue he has isn't with game overs per say, but the time it takes to get back to the game. In most games, you die, several seconds pass and you resume from either the start of an area/level or a check point. Add in a game over to that and that's more time taken up. It isn't hard to see why Alax appreciates how Celeste is always speedy with getting the player back to platforming after a death. Many of the examples he gives in his video of Celeste's brilliance are the reason I enjoyed the game so much, quick restarts included. At the same time, I don't think all games should bring us back to the action within the speed of a finger snap.
When Madeline dies in Celeste, her death is so fast it may was well be instantaneous. The girl doesn't even have time to suffer. When Mario perishes in most Super Mario games, he falls off the screen and a few seconds pass before you get to resume.
Instantaneous death in all video games would rob us one of the medium's best little touches: death animations. Mario has one of the most iconic death animations in all of gaming. His hands are up as he falls off the screen and one of the numerous death/failure jingles plays. Classic stuff and he isn't the only one with a memorable animation. Mega Man explodes into dots when he dies, and that death is so famous that it was replicated in the Super Smash Bros. games. Some game get really creative with character deaths. Take Crash Bandicoot for example. Depending on the situation, he'll either break his spine, burn up, drown, get electrocuted or explode. When I was playing the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, I chuckled at the many ways Crash met his demise and the game had me wondering just how many death animations he had. Sure, seeing Crash swell up by bee stings in Bee-having drove me insane after dying in that level over and over again, but I certainly wouldn't want his death animations to go away completely.
It is true that unique death animations and longer restart times do tick more seconds out of your life but I feel that they give you time to let failure sink in. In the case of Super Mario Maker 2, where there are all kinds of ways to die, one of my greatest joys is seeing YouTubers and streamers react to how they died. Two of my favorite Super Mario Maker 2 videos from Alpharad are Salty Mario Maker and Salty Mario Maker 2: The Terminator. These videos show him trying and failing over and over again to clear some brutally hard levels. His frustration and disbelief over what killed him is hilarious and this is made all the better with Mario's (or in this case, Toad and Toadette's) death animation. I can't help but feel part of the Super Mario games charm would be lost if instantaneous death replaced that loved animation and Super Mario Maker 2 would be a poorer game for it.
The removal of game overs as a whole would strip games of another important puzzle piece: the game over screens, especially those that go above and beyond two words. Who can forget Friday the 13th's "You and your friends are dead."? Or the Grunty taking Tooty's beauty and becoming a mega babe in Banjo-Kazooie? I could go on and on, but I'll stop there. (Read up or more game overs in my ongoing Game Over feature #shamelessplug)
They say that patience is a virtue, but people are not the most patience of creatures. We want everything to come fast and now. However, things don't always work out that way and timing in video games is no exception to that. Do I believe every game should contain game overs? No, of course not, but they should not be eliminated entirely, certainly not just to save us several more seconds.
No comments:
Post a Comment