[Trumpet63]

I don't think that a life bar has any real purpose aside from being transferred over from FFR's source material. Thinking back to DDR, or any arcade-based rhythm game, I imagine that the whole purpose of a life bar is to drain your quarters.

In Guitar Hero, a pass / no pass system is useful because the game lacks useful, in-depth skill measurement (I mean c'mon, they don't even have accuracy).

Maybe I would buy the idea that it's a pretty powerful goal motivation, and it has some social-engineering uses, teaching players what level of accuracy is expected. But I mean, if that is the case, what level of punishment is correct? What even is the current system, does anyone know the specifics of the value of the full lifebar, or how much is given by getting perfects? If we want to improve the system, we ought to look at all of the variables.