When You Die, You Go Back to the Beginning.

[Kriven]

There are less despicable ways to pressure the player not to fail than a frustrating, artificial difficulty. Particularly where you mentioned being set back hours of progress, I don't think I'd ever be motivated to play again after that.

[Crappy Blue Luigi]

this design style is a relic of arcade game development, but it's not inherently bad; it just made a lot more sense back then because the primary goal of an arcade game was to get as much of your money as possible.

it can still be effective, though. taking a permanent loss near the end of a game can be really frustrating, but does it motivate you not to play again? with exception to a few games that had outright cheap difficulty spikes at the tail end, i can't think of any time i've played a game where getting a game over meant starting from the beginning that i didn't feel like coming back to later. playing from the start and having to experience the first level over and over builds experience and muscle memory, so soon enough you start to become really good at those first sections. following that is the mid-game, and then the late-game. the more you play the game, the better you are at it.

instead of the overall school analogy (which is way too broad in scope), let's think about a class analogy. if you tested into beginning algebra in college, you have to pass that class, along with higher divisions of algebra, in order to graduate. if you fail that class, you have to take it again. that's a frustrating thing to hear, right? however, more likely than not, your knowledge from going through it the first time will help you in taking it the second time, and you'll have a better experience with the class. that, to me, is how video games of this style work. the struggle of going through it in full with no backup measures makes the accomplishment more rewarding.

obviously, it's not the best mechanic for every game, but roguelikes and beat-'em-ups thrive on this--interestingly, for two different reasons. the roguelikes motivate you to keep playing after a loss through the randomized content and the interest that generates, while the beat-'em-ups motivate you through knowledge of the game's progression and enemy placements, as well as the strategies for dealing with enemies and bosses.

[Kriven]

but does it motivate you not to play again?

It really depends on how long the game is. Even really fun games will leave me quite sour if a game over three hours into it sets me all the way back. But games that can be start-to-finish run through in about an hour? I don't mind that so much, even if that hour is really challenging.

[Crappy Blue Luigi]

yeah, i guess that's the point to be taken, here. a game like streets of rage would only take around an hour to complete if you can beat it in one sitting, so it's acceptable there--but, for example, an rpg of any decent length with no save points would be hell.

[Koh]

But even with games like Streets of Rage, they should have some sort of number of lives and continues system, which SoR does. I hate the fact that you only get one chance on Double Dragon III until you get far enough to have a backup character and lose them too. I'd much rather have say 3 lives per continue by default, with 2 or 3 continues than one chance, one clean perfect run. It's highly obnoxious. The previous two games weren't like that, so there was no excuse for the third one to suddenly pull that.

[Crappy Blue Luigi]

oh, yeah! i'm not advocating getting one shot and one shot only to clear the game--that's going overboard in most non-roguelike cases. for me, streets of rage and most konami beat-'em-ups are the ideal, utilizing a limited number of lives and continues but not letting you keep going if you run out of them. double dragon 3's difficulty was a huge step in the wrong direction and could have only come from the idea that american gamers liked extreme difficulty (an idea that was probably born out of the arcades), because the japanese version's difficulty was scaled down a bit.

[water dog]

Demon's Souls does this mechanic to an extent. That is to say there aren't any "bonfires" to save your progress like there are in the Dark series. Each level is "divided" into sub levels. For example, World 1-1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-2, World 2-1, 2-2, 2-3, etc... and when you die, which is very easy to do, you have to start that particular area over form the start.

What I'm trying to say is, is that this works for some games. It works marvelously in Demon's Souls. But in some classic games, I could see it as a bit too incapacitating. I know there are games out there that make you start over from the very beginning of the game if you fail--mostly arcade titles.