The need to continue

[Strider]

My favourite genre is the 2D shoot-em-up and I've currently been playing through a lot of Shikigami-No-Shiro 2 and Ikaruga. However, I am not using any continues as I really want these games to last.

What's your opinion on continuing, will you use everything that's available to you, or will you limit yourself to just the one credit?

[Matt Hughes]

When it comes to games like Ikaruga and R-Type I need all the help I can get! My main problem is that I am like a glow plug when it comes to games such as these; I warm up as my session starts, become pretty good during play and by the time I die have been doing things I could only have dreamt of when I first started.

Then I go back to the start and my concentration is gone. I have been so intense and into the more difficult latter parts that I completely underestimate the early parts and thus screw up. Using continues means that I can pretty much carry on from the place I left. Even if I do then go on to complete the game using continues, the feeling I get having achieved this means that later on I will try and run through the whole thing again, but with a higher score and quicker.

Using no continues frustrates me and tends to get me agitated as when I get to a certain point, the prospect of having to start from the beginning depresses me. Hey - I might be crap, but I'm proud of it. I need all the second chances I can get!

[MarkyB]

I never try and continue if it can be helped, especially when learning to get good at a game and beable to put up good scores online or anywhere for that matter...

I'd continue to see an ending for a game, but wouldn't go about saying i can complete a game if i'd used continues, that comes when you can one credit a game ^_^

[rjpageuk]

I still havent completed Psyvariar

[PH]

Don't think your alone there rjp.

Quite simply i never continue. I prefer to (l)earn my way through a game (for example i've yet to see some of the later stages in Psyvariar. )

As MarkyB says you can't really claim a completion when its taken you 76 credits!!

[Sketcz]

I like continues.

After working hard, using a continue once, to taste the next level, will give an incentive to try ahrder next time.

I did that with ikaruga, at the end of the 2nd stage, and after tasting the 3rd, I reset and tried even harder to get further.

If I was stuck on one level for ages, and didnt get to see the next, it would be a case of what I dont know, I wont miss.

[Matt Hughes]

Yeah, that was the point I tried to make but worded poorly up there. The further I get into the game, the more incentive I get to run through it again. I can't really explain why, but I'm just like that.

[Saurian]

I still havent completed Psyvariar

I'm feeling you blud, I cant finish it either - but put it this way, when you DO it'll be a 1 credit run and you then have every right to gloat for the rest of your life and demand statues in every major city!

I vowed never to use continues ever back in the SF2 World Warrior days - dunno what it was but everyone I knew felt the same: Continuing is dirty and pointless, if you're gonna finish a game FINISH the game dont just stumble through it. If I see scores with digits on the end on any of my games, the data gets wiped.

You ****ed up - get off the machine, take your coin off the top and go to the back of the quewe bitch!

[Darwock]

Don't like using continues, but try playing Metal Slug 3 without them. If continues weren't available that game would go in the bin!

[Himura Kaji]

I have used continues. Never claim to have clocked anything with them tho. When goin for scores tho continues 0.

Generally i don't see the point in continues coz generally you should be able to get to at least the same point again from the start and if you can't pass where you are getting to harder stages aint gonna help.

e.g Gradius - You CANT continue on that coz if you die your too weak to carry on ... damn that game was harsh...

[dataDave]

Don't like using continues, but try playing Metal Slug 3 without them. If continues weren't available that game would go in the bin!

Exactly.

That's the best thing about having the Neo version, you can't plough 200 credits in, unless you have the console debug-bios chipped of course (which mine isn't).

I'm currently trying to 1 life it at the moment and I'm getting bored of hitting reset everytime I die on the 2nd level boss (hard mode).

It'd be much faster 'learning' that segment if I endured to the finish by using 2 or 3 lives, or maybe even, *gasp*, a credit! Beat the boss, then reset. Then it's just a matter of gradually cutting the amount of lives lost each time I play until it's a perfect run.

That'd take much less time than my current technique, which sees me attempt it 4 or 5 times per day before getting sick of Mission1 and then finally switching off and going back to Advance Wars.

I swear, I can do mission1+2 perfectly in my sleep. I'm sooooo bored of it now.

There is something there stopping me from progressing onto mission3 and learning that though. I've only been through it a couple of times on normal. when I hit it on hard I'm gonna be like a total n00b and it'll take days to trim the level down to size. At least it's an easy boss though. His missiles will travel faster and take more hits to down, so I could be wrong about that just yet.

Someone mentioned Gradius, yeah, it's a proper gutter when you died on that bastard after being kitted up. It nearly made me cry a few times.

[jezzace]

I like continues because I sort of like to get through a game once and see it all before I try and get really good at it. Having said I'm always secretly pleased when games limit your continues because its actually forcing me to get good right from the start.

Another reason I like continues is because they remind me of the old days where you'd plug thousands of pounds into a machine to continue...it therefore makes me feel loaded everytime I continue. Unfortunately no developer has added a "little bratty kid with hand over coin slot" feature to prevent you from continuing just like real arcades do.

[Che Musashi]

In my attempts to unlock "free play" I continue when I play Shikigami no Shiro II. I'll do it my first play through just to see how far I can go. After that I'll practice my 1 credit skills.

I like games like Dynasty Warriors where when you die your dead. It should be that simple for action games.

[Kieran76]

I use to never ever use continues when I was very poor. I remember playing Strider on the Megadrive on Hard without using continues and it became a nightmare, these days though I am a bit slacker. I still feel a bit dirty doing it. As Saurian said its all about the sense of achievement, but then again games are so much longer these days.

[Brighter than Daz]

I need continues like the air that I breath these days, it normally takes three deaths in a row just to accept that it was a flawed plan and perhaps I shouldnt pursue it.

Sometimes they are a necessary evil too, I challenge anyone to finish R -Type Leo with out them, or Thunderforce 4 come to that...