Do Save States Tarnish Classics? - News
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 05 October 2011 / 4,374 Views
As budgets for games continue to rise due to titles aiming for the latest and greatest features and graphics, it's a little surprising that classic games have made such a huge comeback with titles from publishers like SEGA, SNK, and Capcom flooding PSN, XBLA and Steam. These newly emulated versions now have some features that used to be only available to those who played ROMs via third party emulators, whether legal copies or not. The most notable addition to these versions is the ability to use save states. Even Nintendo's 3DS has the ability built into the virtual console menu. But do these take away from what the original experience should have been?
Save states, at their core, are a crutch to help gamers more easily complete titles. Save states allow players to save at any point in the game and return to those conditions as if everything after the save never happened. Where as today's games have used filler to lengthen the experience, the games of 8-bit and 16-bit generations created length with severe difficulty. To some, the feeling of accomplishment from overtaking these titles are some of the most enjoyable aspects of classic gaming. Even some modern titles like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls capitalized on this feeling, feeding players an experience with a heavy amount difficulty level for an extreme satisfaction at the end of a challenge. Dark Souls, however, is backed by a full experience. Many older games can be beaten in less than an hour when played right. On a normal play through, the deaths continue to multiply the play time. If the title was without a password system or battery back-up saves, having to power off the system also increases that play time.
However, to me the constant deaths and restarting entire levels, or in some cases the entire game, quickly kicks me to the ground and makes me less likely to fully enjoy the title. Sure, practice makes perfect, but I'm a busy man with a lot of games to play, and playing the same level 50+ times simply doesn't work. I just recently tackled and defeated Shinobi III, something that wouldn't have happened without the help of the save states feature included in Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection. I've also made use of it in a few other titles, including another Shinobi game, Shadow Dancer. With my ever growing back catalog of Genesis titles thanks to how ridiculously cheap they are now, I'm going to be more and more thankful for save states as I dive further into my back catalog.
As much as I do love save states, using them does seem to strip away a certain aspect of older titles. Horrendously hard titles like Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse have burned their game over themes into my mind after hours of struggle. While I never overcame that specific title, my enjoyment of it still remains today as I look back on just how stupidly hard it was. With save states, I surely would have had a completely different experience as I could easily correct each and every mistake made.
I do think its great that developers have embraced save states for their titles. Now that the classics are so cheap, the need to artificially extend their value through brutal difficulty is kind of gone. With save states, even some of the hardest titles can be enjoyed by an average player. Even outside of nostalgic reasons, I do think a game's difficulty can completely change the experience you have with a title for the better. Obviously, it's a matter of personal preference. Finding a healthy balance between challenging yourself and using save states would be the easy answer. But sometimes even if you have it for emergency situations, sometimes being defeated is sweeter than trampling over a game.
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Save states can be justified at times. However, watching how some people use them just completely ruins games. save state save state die load state die load state The only reason why you're dying so much is because you're being a total scrub! Relying on save states makes you play super badly,
I often save a ton on my games(especially pc) because i have had power losses and stuff and i dont have much time to game so i want to make it worth it. But I often never have a need to load those saves. I agree using the save system just to beat a game sucks, but as someone who works alot i really can't play games that dont have a save anywhere option or frequent save spots.
I often save a ton on my games(especially pc) because i have had power losses and stuff and i dont have much time to game so i want to make it worth it. But I often never have a need to load those saves. I agree using the save system just to beat a game sucks, but as someone who works alot i really can't play games that dont have a save anywhere option or frequent save spots.
Well it is obviously needed in games that don't have any save of their own at all and some games are just plain unfair and this helps level the playing field but when people use it every couple of second it completely ruins the game, I think they should put timer and only let you save once every 5 mins or something.
Save states are bad if the player has control of the save/load states because then they can just cheat. It is good in the hands of something like Nintendo's Virtual Console where it saves the state of the game so when you turn of your wii/3ds and turn it back on later, you can pick up where you left off. That's just plain handy.
Just like the author I am split about this. It ruins the challenge but lets you experience more of content.
I think the question that needs to be asked is if it was possible at the time these games were created to easily do saves would the devs have done so? And I think the answer is yes
