Jonathan

I’d also like to say that the most elegant use of such antiquated mechanics that I’ve seen comes from the Prince of Persia series – 3D I, II, and III (people I respect told me not to bother with IV).

These games were filled with brutal instant-death puzzles which worked because they made “lives” a manageable resource with secondary purposes. When you die you can loose a good chunk of time, but that didn’t bother me because those games were so good at making it easy for the player to survive and feel like a badass while doing it.

Plus, it’s a 3D platformer where it’s a genuine effortless joy to control the main character. This is a rare thing indeed. Good job guys.

Mario Galaxy also sorta did away with lives. The player still has lives, but there’s a 1Up mushroom in the homeworld. In comparison to Prince of Persia, this is a rather ham-handed way to address the goal of providing (challenge plus enjoyment), rather than (challenge yields enjoyment).