Check Point Starvation: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"You go back... to the beginning? No... continues? No... extra lives?"''|'''[[The Angry Video Game Nerd]]''' on ''[[Milon's Secret Castle]]''}}

 

 

 

This can occasionally slip in in very story heavy games, possibly by accident. It's particularly common in the introduction for the game, as [[Exposition]] can be interspersed with tutorials or gameplay without a save function.

** ''Metroid Prime 2 Echoes'' is infamous for having few life-restoring save points and a dark world that actively drains your life for much of the game.

* ''[[Milon's Secret Castle]]'' (referred to in the page quote): [[Subverted Trope|Subverted]]. It appears, at first, that dying once sends you back to the beginning of the game. However, you actually ''can'' continue: ''[[Classic Cheat Code|with a code]]''. It's also the same way in the Game Boy port, but instead of a cheat code, the game gives you a password immediately after a game over.

* The first save point in ''[[Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy]]'' is a remarkably long ways into the tutorial. The problem with this is not in the time it takes to get to it, however, but the fact that the [[Noob Cave]] is actually filled with surprisingly ''dangerous'' [[Mooks]] that are very likely to make mincemeat of someone playing the game for the first time. Dying boots you back to the last save. No save? Have fun going through the 45-minute-long tutorial dungeon again!

* [[An Untitled Story]]: on regular mode and higher, one save point is cut from BlackCastle. On masterful mode and higher, another one disappears. This means you need to complete a good three quarters of this incredibly lengthy area without saving.

* Checkpoints in ''[[God Hand]]'' are invisible, so you can't tell if there are any in a level until you die. Generally, they're where the game loads a new screen (but not always)... which means that any level where the game doesn't have to load a new area, like "Flying Pyramid", has to be done in one go.

* ''[[Ninja Gaiden]]'' for the [[NES]] sends you back to Stage 6-1 if you die on any of the final bosses.

* The final stages of certain ''[[Castlevania]]'' games, such as ''Super CV IV''. The most notable offender was in the international versions of Castlevania III, which if the player died against Castlevania, he/she would have to restart from A-2 instead of A-3 (like in the Japanese version).

* In the doujin game ''[[Crescent Pale Mist]]'', checkpoints only appear ''BEFORE'' a boss fight, meaning that dying before reaching the boss results in starting the Chapter all over again. Have fun ''not'' dying in [[The Maze|Chapters 3 and 4]].

* ''[[Perfect Dark]] Zero'' has only 2 checkpoints per mission; one at the very beginning, and one about 3/4ths through or before the end level boss fight. This is fine for the shorter missions, but very noticeable on the longer ones.

* ''[[Tron 2.0]]'': Autosaving only occurred at the start of a level, no matter how large said level was. Saving did not exist at all during the lightcycle matches.

* The original ''[[Call of Duty]]'' did not have checkpoints nearly as often as its later sequels, which made things all the more difficult considering it was also before the series used [[Regenerating Health]]. Fortunately, the first game also still allows you to make traditional saves and quicksaves whenever you want.

 

* ''[[Adventure Island]] II'' and ''III'' had no checkpoints within stages, in contrast to four for each level in ''Adventure Island I''. However, the stages are shorter.

* ''[[Captain Comic]]'' has no checkpoints or save points.

* ''[[Donkey Kong Country Returns]]'' has a level (Muncher Marathon) that has an [[Advancing Wall of Doom]] made of spiders. Once you hit the checkpoint, you can finish the level in 10 seconds. Everywhere before that, if you die, you are back to square one.

** Taken [[Up to Eleven]] in the [[Bonus Level|Temples]]. There are no checkpoints. For ''any of them''. And the majority of them are [[Marathon Level|5-8 minutes]] of pure old-school platforming. And when you get to the ''Golden Temple''....

* ''[[Oddworld]]'', especially the first game, combined this with [[Nintendo Hard]] to produce severe cases of controller-snapping frustration. The developers did add more in the second game in response.

* [[Prehistorik]] and its predecessor [[Titus the Fox]] give you a code for each level that lets you continue from that level. However, they don't give you that code at the beginning of the level: instead, you have to find it, somewhere in the middle, and quite often hidden in some hard-to-find area. If you almost complete level 4 without finding its code, well, back to level 3 for you.

* ''[[Maple Story]]'': Loves to do this with some particularly nasty Jump Quests, especially the higher level ones (such as the Zakum party quest) which tend to involve roughly five minutes of jumping on platforms barely large enough to walk on, all while dodging falling rocks, poison clouds, energy blasts, indestructable monsters, and the occassional bit of lag. If you fail/fall? Congratulations, you get to slowly walk through lava back to the start of the area.

** And it has to be done '''[[Rule of Three|THREE TIMES]]''' in order to get the [[Bragging Rights Reward|trophy/achievement]]. '''[[It Got Worse|WITH]]''' the [[Timed Mission|time limit]] decreasing after each [[Difficulty Spike|succession]]. Have fun beating [[That One Level|Eggmanland]] in ''25 minutes''.

* ''[[Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 (video game)|Sonic the Hedgehog 2006]]'' has several stages that lack check points until several minutes into a stage and have little to none afterward. And some, like The End of the World Stage, lack checkpoints altogether.

** ''[[Super Mario Galaxy]]'' and ''[[Super Mario Galaxy 2]]'': Some missions are rather long with no checkpoints in them at all, most notably the Daredevil missions, whose primary objective is to finish the stage as a [[One-Hit-Point Wonder]]. The two most infamous ones are for "The Sinking Lava Spire" in the first game, which requires the player to traverse the longest mission in [[That One Level]]; and "The Perfect Run" in the second, taking place in by far the hardest stage in a game with a massive [[Sequel Difficulty Spike]].

** [[Super Mario 3D Land]] has S8-Crown, which is even longer than Grandmaster Galaxy, and no easier (unless you bring in power-ups). Even the standard last level (at the end of regular World 8) has this; before the checkpoint is a fairly large castle stage, and after it is probably the longest fight against Bowser in the whole series, certainly the longest in 3D.

** Space Zone 2 in [[Super Mario Land 2 Six Golden Coins|Super Mario Land 2]]. There's a checkpoint bell towards the end of the level. If Mario loses a life prior to reaching the bell, he'll have to start from the beginning of that level.

** [[Yoshi's Island]] usually doesn't have this due to multiple middle rings, but there's one point in [[Brutal Bonus Level|Endless World of Yoshis/Crazy Maze Days]] where this is a problem. You see, there's a long falling section with instant kill spikes, and after that, a checkpoint. Problem is, checkpoints work only once, leaving the player with a [[Sadistic Choice]]; use it straight after the spikes and then hope you don't mess up the next three or four rooms (and in that time, you have to dodge those spikes another two times), or use it after the tricky section has been beaten all three times and you've got the key, in which case once mess up will put you right at the start of the second area.

=== [[Puzzle Game]] ===

* ''[[The Impossible Quiz]]'': There are over 100 questions with no checkpoints or continues, meaning that a mistake sends the player back to the beginning of the game. The game contains a lot of [[Trial and Error Gameplay]], and many of the questions are [[Timed Mission|timed]], with the timer running out on a question counting as a loss. The game does provide "skips" so that the player can get past any question that they think they cannot answer {{spoiler|until the last question, where the player must use ''every'' skip that the game offered to pass the question}}.

 

=== [[Roguelike]] ===