3 Lives or 3 Saves?

[ShiraNoMai]

Pick your favorite game, one you would likely replay hundreds of times if you wanted to. Or even a game you'd like to replay with an extra challenge added onto it. Perhaps it was too easy?

Now, I present to you a "would you rather?" situation: You must now play this game in the mode of your choice below. What do you pick, and why?

You have 3 lives for the entire game, and an infinite amount of save points.

OR

You have 3 save points to use at any point during the game at your discretion, and an infinite amount of retries (from the save).

[Moonface]

Going with The Last of Us Part 2, it would depend on the difficulty. For anything Hard or lower I'd probably go for three lives, because dying would be unlikely on subsequent playthroughs of that game on those difficulties. However, if it was Grounded, which I'm doing right now, I'd go for three saves because there's no way I'd get through the game with only three lives. I'm only halfway in the game on that difficulty now and I've died at least three times already, and that's with using prone invisibility in the accessibility settings. If I didn't have that on my three lives run would've probably ended before even getting out of the prologue.

[Mr EliteL]

prone invisibility

What does that mean in-game?   Since only invisibility in that game if it's the player sounds broken yet it must mean something else.


For Paper Mario: The Thousand Year-Door I'd go with 3 save points as there's Life Shroom to save death once or how many you have in Items at the time, and I usually lose to Pit of 100 Trials only unless I add another challenge on top of 3 save points. My three save points would be the first after Chapter 2 as it's the one Chapter in the way of getting to Chapter 3. If I happened to die between the first and second save points I would be happy to go through Glitz Pit again and have the chance to change Yoshi kid's colour. Second save point would be after Chapter 5 as I really like Chapter 6 and again if I die before the third save point I'd be fine doing that again. Third would be outside the door to Chapter 8, and I also would be strong enough for the Pit by then.

For 3 lives I believe I'd be able to do the whole main story, and Life Shrooms would help too (I know they're a scapegoat but you can lose them all and die in a fight still). Shadow Queen would be the main obstacle but I'd probably have all three lives still or at least 2 by then. If I wasn't allowed Life Shrooms it would be a lot harder and I might die once or twice in Chapter 4 from a random Amazy Dayzee deciding to attack.

[ShiraNoMai]

Prone invisibility means you gain invisibility while in a prone state AKA on the floor in cover (grass, typically).

The three save point for TTYD sounds dope, really smart save point placements. It sounds more riskier/tough to do than the lives one because of the Life Shroom availability.

I'd definitely do a 3 Saves for Yoshi's Island. 3 Lives is basically playing the game as normal and deciding to end the run after you Game Over (you by default have 3 lives). Besides, there are some HELLA bullshit ways to die in that game that just don't feel like your fault. Mind you I'm also talking about doing a 100% run and not just a boring any% (warpless). Saves would still be rough as fuck but it'd basically be treated like a speedrun at that point, I imagine.

[Moonface]

prone invisibility

What does that mean in-game?   Since only invisibility in that game if it's the player sounds broken yet it must mean something else.

As Shira said, it's an accessibility feature where when you go prone, you become completely invisible to enemy AI unless you draw a weapon. Human enemies will react to you if they step on you, but they just act startled and shout that the player is present, then run around taking cover because they don't actually know your location. Infected however will actually attack you if they step on you, which I found out the hard way when one of them almost killed me right at the end of a chapter on my permadeath run.

@Mr EliteL: I like how you say Shadow Queen would be an obstacle yet whenever I've seen you fight her you just buff up and bitch slap her in a single hit.

Dead Space 2 does the 3 saves approach as an actual difficulty mode (Hardcore), and I've never managed to finish it. Some parts of that game are brutal, especially in the beginning. I would not want to swap the saves out for lives because I would probably lose them all way before the end.

Sekiro would be doable with 3 lives because BarbarousKing has done a deathless run of that game, but for me I'd pick saves for that and any other FromSoftware game. I'm not good enough to get through without dying more than three times. XD I have no idea where I'd throw down saves though, even in Bloodborne, because I don't know what stuff is optional. The most I can say is it would be after any hard boss if the stuff I did beforehand wasn't super long or difficult, just so that I wouldn't have to keep doing that boss every time I die after it before my next save.

[Dragon Lord]

3 Lives, for any game. Three saves would be too easy because you can just restart at your third save and keep going until you finally overcome. Three lives means you are threatened with the potential of a complete wipe. Granted a lot of games can be beaten without a single death pretty easily, so let's up the anti and say...

NieR: Automata 3 Lives Very Hard run (everything kills you in one hit on Very Hard)

[Kyng]

I'd probably go with the three lives. Most of my playthroughs are pretty long (sometimes 50 hours or more for the entire game) - and it'd be a real pain to only be able to save my progress three times during the entire playthrough.

Besides, I play a fair number of games that give you only one life (e.g. FTL: Faster Than Light, or Crypt of the NecroDancer when you don't have the potion), so three lives should be manageable for me .

One exception, where I might go with three saves, is Portal. It's short enough to be completed in a single sitting, and I died quite a lot the last time I played (I didn't make any effort to avoid it, since the consequences of dying in that game are very minor )

[ShiraNoMai]

I definitely feel like 3 Lives is definitely more reminiscent of games of yore, where games had that system in place by default, and would let you use "passwords" to advance to later levels to avoid replaying them endlessly (though, I think that was later down that line of games like that).

Saves are definitely for games that have a higher death chance in longer titles, games where you'd prefer not to endure having to replay "cutscene-heavy" sections.

[Moonface]

Crash 4 is definitely a game I'd want three saves instead of lives for. Later levels are just awfully hard. The first three games though I'd go with either because they're not hard enough where I'd die a lot but also I could probably beat the whole game without needing to save very much either.