I don't know, even in DKCR and Tropical Freeze I never felt in danger of a game over. Last time I can remember getting game overs was Mega Man 9. And thankfully we never get old style total game overs anymore.
And re the p***iffication of America, that reminds me of a Neogaf thread I saw about a month ago. The consensus was that games should let you skip ahead to wherever you want in the game.