This is going to sound like a complaint, but it’s really not. I know others have brought up the challenge of Arcade mode’s no continues. I wasn’t about to whine over this, as on the surface level it seems like a hard but fair challenge. But then I thought about: who are the biggest fans/purchasers of this game? I’d have to guess it’s GenX'ers like myself, who are fans of the original game 40 years ago. Being a gamer as a kid is a different ballgame than being a gamer in your 40s. A lot of us have jobs, kids, bills, etc that we didn’t have to worry about as kids. And that does affect my desire and ability to grind for hours and hours at games.

It is authentic to an arcade experience in that you get one credit, no continues, certainly. But the arcade games were also meant to consume your money in a timely manner… it wasn’t simply about the challenge that the arcade game devs had in mind. They wanted to kill off the average player in a certain number of minutes to get that next quarter. With the advent of video games at home, one of the big appeals was NOT having to do it all in one exhausting go. I kind of wish that was the case here for Y:R.

A lot of levels aren’t even super challenging as the battle against my own fatigue and endurance in this game. I’ve had it for about a week now, and I now blast through the first 10 levels in a trance. And then I’m just tired and tilted and can totally feel I’m not “firing on all cylinders” anymore.. and that’s what eventually leads to me making a stupid mistake and game-over’ing.

I love the game. I’m not hating on it. But man, would I have loved a password/save/continue every 5 levels or so. I want to beat the game, I really do. But I honestly don’t know if I’ll ever be able to.