Snip
Good point. I hadn't really thought of it from that angle, I guess people are different (surprise!)
Personally, I've been taking a strange sort of enjoyment out of dying in this game. I guess it's the feeling that every death was my own fault, so I focused on improving myself and enjoyed it more as a result. I don't think I would have had that if I could have quicksaved. I'm really bad with savescumming, so in a way it was nice to not have the option.
But yeah, I definitely see what you mean. There is a threshold between a game being punishing and it being frustrating, and it varies from person to person. Like I said previously, it would be nice to have the option of going Ironman or not, but I still think the game is great even without it (Arena is where the real fun is at, anyway
).
I know that Sui Generis is gonna have a respawn system, kinda Dark Souls-ish (sorry Grizzly
). Basically, when you die you respawn somewhere (dunno where). You lose your items (which you can reclaim, though your body might get looted or moved), and you lose thaumaturgic (magic) power. Exanima is gonna have a checkpoint (
one checkpoint), once more content is added. From what the steam page says, there's also gonna be some sort of global progression system, so you do get some progress as you die repeatedly.
With that in mind, I can see where they're going with the permadeath thing. They're basically going with the whole 'run through the gauntlet of misery'-thing in the main game, with you getting more badass as you keep dying (both the player and the character). Personally, I
really like that idea, but again, people are different, and I'm a bloody masochist.
Also, regarding keys, you only really need that first one to complete the game, judging from the speedruns, though the other keys might hide some sweet loot.
Fake edit: Also, I would just like to share probably the most awesome moment I've had in the arena so far (you can see it in that video at 20:45). I was fighting the shield lady in the expert arena, the one with the red clothes and vest, using the maul. We traded a few hits and eventually got into a sort of grapple. I got out of it, swung my hammer at her, and like the total badass she was, she parried the blow and leapt off the ground, hitting my head with a perfect left-to-right slash as she did. It was entirely accidental, probably impossible to recreate, but my god was it badass. I then proceeded to kill her, and as an encore, I smashed her head in with my maul.