10 Video Game Skills You Won’t Believe You Had To Unlock

There is something so beautifully evil about having a game make the player unlock the ability to save that you almost have to applaud it.

This is the exact reality of La-Mulana. In order to unlock saving, you have to collect ten coins, which is absolutely, delightfully cruel. It leaves you open for the very real pitfall of not noticing you need to unlock it until you need to save, making everything after a painful battle to collect the necessary coins to stop you from starting all over again if you die.

While the remake of this game removed the saving feature, you can't help but wish they'd kept it in, in a messed up way. It calls back to the old - and slightly masochistic - days of arcade machines, where games simply didn't feature a save slot, forcing you to battle as far as you could every time with no breaks.

The rest of La-Mulana is pretty challenging, but no moment in it quite matches the horror of realising that, in this game, you have to earn the right to save it.