Currently, upon death, the player respawns and all enemies killed and items collected in the current area stay just as they were before death. This reminds me slightly of Prodeus in design and makes the game a bit too easy imo.

Perhaps, as an alternative, there can be a toggable menu option which enables loading the game from the last checkpoint upon death? This would of course reload all enemies and replace all items since the last checkpoint. With this change reaching checkpoints now has more meaning and dying has more of an impact outside of the arena fights.

This may sound masochist to some but it would add extra challenge to the game for others. And yes.. falling would equal death and reload the game from last checkpoint as well ;)