Games that really need a save feature

[D-Class 198482]

I love the Binding of Isaac. I really do. But it pisses me off...so...much...
Look at it from my view: I have the homing tears, the Fly Halo, and that one super happy bomb power up, only on the first two stages. Then I breeze through the first part of the second stage, until I reach the first boss which promptly kills me because I ran into a fly.
HNNNNG
So, if you haven't played the game, allow me to tell you what happens:
You start over. Smack from the beginning, losing any items you may have gotten.
I can't
I cannot
I have lost the ability to can.
The LEAST they could have done is given you a save point at the end of the first area, so you start at the second one. THE LEAST
THE LEAAAST
So...what other games (recent games, mind you) need a save feature, or at least to save more often?

 

[hazabaza1]

It's a Roguelike. That's the point. You got good items and got complacent so FUCK YOU START OVER.

Anyway, uhhh... I dunno. Probably a few things that could use quick save or mid-level saving but most stuff I can either set to standby or save anywhere generally.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

As someone who has played many roguelikes and not been able to best any of them, I both share your pain and want you to suffer as I do.

The threat of permanent death is what makes these game exhilarating for me, but I can see why they'd piss people off.

While it does have a save feature, I really wish Contra 4 didn't steal a continue from you when you saved. The game is punishing enough T.T

Most of the games I can think of that need one but don't have one are quite old. James Pond 3 desperately needed a save feature, or at least a less convoluted password system. James Pond 2 could have used a save system, too, though I believe the PS1 re-release did?

 

[ohnoitsabear]

I do agree that Binding of Isaac needs a save feature, but not in the way you're thinking. When it gets to the point where you're doing runs up to Sheol or Cathedral, it can take upwards of an hour. Shit can easily come up during that time, and it would be nice to be able to quit the game and pick up where I left off. Sure, this could allow for easy cheating, but honestly, I don't give a shit if other people cheat at a single-player video game.

Now, allowing you to reload after you die would just defeat the entire purpose of the game. The amount of the game's content that you see in one playthrough is just a tiny fraction of all of the content in the game, and there is more changing content at the lower levels (bosses, mostly) than at the higher levels. If you were to reload the game, you would miss out on all of this. Plus, the random nature of the game ensures that no two playthoughs are alike, and the permadeath just encourages replaying it to see this variety.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for making options to allow more people to enjoy a game. However, in this case it just seems like this type of game might not be for you.

Anyway, more on topic. Metro 2033 really needed a quicksave key. The game has some absurd difficulty spikes, and the frustration from these would be seriously lessened if I didn't have to spend two minutes gathering ammo and walking over to the difficult area every single time I died.

 

[TheEvilCheese]

Roguelikes gonna Roguelike I guess? Permadeath is a big draw of the style and I wouldn't have FTL any other way (although that DOES have a save-resume function I think, I always play in one sitting). Not that I can beat FTL mind you, or The Binding of Isaac for that matter. But I enjoy them all the more as a 30 minute time sink where death means I go do something else and try again tomorrow.

In a similar vein, some games do need a working autosave feature (I'm looking at you Witcher 2) and some just need more frequent save points (star ocean TLH).

 

[KeyMaster45]

InB4 the new Sim City :3

Can't say I've really ever come up against anything without the ability to save; except for maybe old NES and Arcade games. Nowadays everything has the ability to save and if it doesn't then odds are it's not really needed. I will agree though that games like The Binding of Issac could use a quick save feature when you get really far in and real life calls. Just make it so that the action of quick saving forces you to exit the game and upon return the save is deleted.

 

[Tanis]

Gitaroo Man (PS2):
Okay, no so much a 'save feature' as a 'pause feature'.

If you pause the game, it restarts the song/level.


At least the PSP version fixed this.

 

[NinjaSniperAssassin]

I do agree that Binding of Isaac needs a save feature, but not in the way you're thinking. When it gets to the point where you're doing runs up to Sheol or Cathedral, it can take upwards of an hour. Shit can easily come up during that time, and it would be nice to be able to quit the game and pick up where I left off. Sure, this could allow for easy cheating, but honestly, I don't give a shit if other people cheat at a single-player video game.

I can't remember which game it was (maybe Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker?), but I remember playing a DS game where you could save at any point, but once you did the game would exit to the title screen and when you reloaded the save it would delete itself. I thought it was a pretty elegant solution; you could save and turn the game off at any time but you wouldn't be able to just reload that save any time you messed up.

OT: Literally ANY portable game. I mean, they're meant to be played on the go, for indeterminate amounts of time, not to mention the rather short battery life of most portable systems rendering extended play sessions virtually impossible. I know some games, especially those ported to handhelds from consoles, weren't originally intended to be played in bite-sized snippets (I'm looking at you, Vagrant Story PSP), but guess what devs: you put them onto portable systems and I'm gonna treat them as portable games. That means I wanna be able to chip away at them 15 minutes at a time and not lose my progress when my PSP's about to die.

 

[The_Echo]

The Binding of Isaac is a roguelike; of course it doesn't have a save feature!

Gitaroo Man (PS2):
Okay, no so much a 'save feature' as a 'pause feature'.

If you pause the game, it restarts the song/level.


At least the PSP version fixed this.

HNNNNNNNNNNNG while I haven't played Gitaroo Man, I have played games that do that, and it is seriously one of the worst design choices I've ever seen in gaming.

I can't remember which game it was (maybe Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker?), but I remember playing a DS game where you could save at any point, but once you did the game would exit to the title screen and when you reloaded the save it would delete itself. I thought it was a pretty elegant solution; you could save and turn the game off at any time but you wouldn't be able to just reload that save any time you messed up.

I know Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and Dirge of Cerberus -Final Fantasy VII- have this feature, in addition to normal saves. Don't know of any others, though. It's a cool idea; really useful considering games that rely on set save points really suck when something comes up and you have to stop playing.

 

[infohippie]

I'm not sure if this is quite the same thing, but so many games that have "save points" could really benefit from a more traditional save game feature, where you can just save at any point. If I am gaming and it's getting later than I thought - which happens all too often when I get absorbed in a game - I would much rather be able to just bring up the menu and select "save", or even just hit F5 for quick save, then turn off and go to bed rather than have to force myself through the next fifteen minutes as my eyelids grow increasingly heavy just so I can reach the next save point before I turn the game off.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

Well, the new Tomb Raider could use a manual save system instead of just checkpoints like it has. I've gotten stuck by a bug more then halfway through, and the only way I can continue is by starting over.

 

[lapan]

Gitaroo Man (PS2):
Okay, no so much a 'save feature' as a 'pause feature'.

If you pause the game, it restarts the song/level.


At least the PSP version fixed this.

The PSP version also feels easier as it is less sensitive about your analogue stick. whcih actually gave me a chance to beat it.

 

[Zetatrain]

Rainbow six 3:Raven shield for the PC. You have no saves and dying sends you back to the beginning of the mission. In a game where you can die from one hit on the lowest setting, being able to save just once per mission would be a god send. One mission took me nearly 4 hours to beat, because I kept on dying over and over at the end.

Managed to beat the game on Recruit, but I'm still struggling with the second mission on Normal difficulty.