Retries

Back in the day, a game's replay value was based on its difficulty in beating the actual game.  You had to keep replaying over and over just to get good enough with a stage to beat it.  How many times do you usually play through a game and retry after dying before being fully familiar with the game?  Do you find your gameplay to be better the first time through, or only after many hours of becoming comfortable with enemy patterns?  Do you tend to learn from your mistakes quickly or not?  For example, getting through Gradius V or Contra Shattered Soldier requires the constant try again and adapt approach.

Sounds like fun...

It depends, I guess.

If the game's first few levels are fun, then its easy to play over and over.