I had fun playing the game, but I think that having limited lives and the death mechanic not being as interwoven into the gameplay could have made for some cases where you softlock yourself because you needed to die at a specific point, although in my gameplay using it was mostly unnecessary. Almost makes me wonder if it would've been better to give unlimited death orbs, because I think that the time sink into setting up the points outweighs the help that they provide in traversing the levels.