I've now seen the recording in question. I admit I did lean on the fast forward key (F10) quite a bit towards the end with the many repititons of the final stage (2nd time through).(posted 8940 days ago)Firstly, Congratulations MKL on demonstrating excellent skill with this game. You did not quite show game mastery though since you didn't complete the game - I have no doubt you will rectify this trifling oversight shortly :-)
Ghouls & Ghosts is a remarkably well balanced game. The game timer forces you to move on with the game but allows good players to juice extra points in each area before moving on. This is true for all levels except for the last level (before Lucifer). The last level is timed in the same way and forces you to move through the level. However, unless you have the unique 'uber' powerup at the end of the level it sends you back to repeat the level again - with no penalty. And this is where the problem arises...
MKL was able to show that 'in principle' this game is marathonable. Noone has yet demonstrated that it can be done though although MKL has shown that you can play for an awfully long time using this method.
The dip switch settings all provide a 'free life every 70,000' on all difficulty settings as far as I can see. Thus a player only needs to get 'good enough' to earn 70,00 points on average per life in the last repeating level in order to marathon the game. A player can get roughly 30,000 each time through the level (by hanging around until the last few seconds shooting all enemies that appear). Thus a rate of 2 and 1/3 last levels per life is sufficient to marathon the game.
The only decent way I can see around this problem is to reluctantly impose 'special rules' for the game. I suggest a 'maximum number of lives' limit. Perhaps all frees up to 70,000 but none after that despite what the game awards. In this way you effectively have 3 lives to start with and can earn up to 3 more if you reach 70,000. In this way mediocre players will not be effected by the rules. Good players OTOH can go all the way and cycle the end several times if they are adventurous enough but can't use a truckload of lives doing it and sending game confirmer's to sleep. Furthermore, if you choose to 'cycle the end level' then finishing the game should be mandatory to gain leaderboard points.
Finally, in the event that someone shows that they can marathon the game with only the 6 lives, then we can consider whether repeating the last level should be banned and whether to impose the hardest difficulty setting etc.
Cheers, Tim