the game of Malice (2004, ps2) is a game of collecting the keys and gears. you do this to kill god. once you kill god, you end the game.
along the way you deliver girl power type dialogue in the face of a world of mild innuendo/objectification and edgy type jokes about worms on welfare etc. it was meant to have Gwen Stefani in it, but sadly it didn’t.
if you die in the game of Malice, losing all of your hearts, you end up on a shadow beach. the shadow beach is the beach of souls. you have to reach the gatekeeper of the game (monty python type guy) in order to load back to the level you died in.
if you die on the beach of souls, harmed by other spirits or by jumping in the ghost water, you have 60 seconds to collect your soul again which spawns in the area somewhere as a red emanation. if you don’t collect your soul in this time, you game over. if you game over you have to start back from the last save. saving is manual.
the beach of souls is an intermediary zone, one of limbo.
a reason for implementing this might be that the game can quite easily take your lives, by being a limp platformer happy to plunge you into an abyss in a way that doesn’t feel good. a gate on the annoyance caused by the game and its manual saves you get no reminder to perform. you didn’t do well enough to complete the level with the tries you were given but it would be too harsh to game over yet.
however, it’s also kind of the one interesting mechanical point in the game. while Malice is fleshed out with weak feeling elemental power-up spells, and dodgy platforming, the beach of souls is a thing i at least don’t remember seeing much elsewhere.
Malice, a goddess, died at the start of the game, and was then sent down into the clock of time in order to be reborn, so the text begins by forefronting the importance of this beach and its keeper.
to end up there once you lose all of your hearts (forms of small death) is a kind of memento mori. remember death is real and material consequence. ironically you inhabit it, a form of pseudodeath, in order to be assured that it can happen.
that if you die on the beach your immortal soul is then separated from you again is a doubling down, memento mori x2.
the only other place i remember seeing this kind of thing is in World of Warcraft, at one time the biggest game in the world, where on death you would be reincarnated as a spirit at a graveyard, into a grey shadow version of the world, that separated interaction from living players, your equipment taking minor damage. die in this form your equipment takes double damage. die and be reborn repeatedly in a short amount of time, you have to wait to even enter the spirit realm.
angels at the graveyards, like the keeper in the game, can restore your life for a cost of damage to your items and a big debuff to your abilities for a while… or you traipse across the world to the spot you died at and get reborn there… or if you know someone with a resurrection spell they can bring you back… it’s again a kind of punishment and memento mori wrapped up in mechanics of collection and travel between a spirit realm and the now.
i guess bloodborne and demon souls do similar stuff, idk i haven’t played enough of them yet.
if you die-die-die, triple die, the big death, in Malice, you see this…
a sad screen to see. this is the true death. you can die on ps2.
also… there are bonus levels that appear to just be cut content that you run through on a timer collecting coins. you unlock these just before the final boss fight. you can name your high scores to match your personality.
GlitchOut 