Saving in Video Games 

If I had a nickel for every time I lost my progress on Sonic 2 turning off the SEGA Genesis because my dad wanted to watch The X-Files on the big TV, I'd have enough to buy a house in the market his generation ruined

Shoutouts to the floppy disk for STILL being the universal save icon!

Password saving is actually an interesting part of video game history. Really interesting seeing something that was a standard for such a long time, then just disappeared off the face of the earth when battery saving and flash memory saving came into play

Passwords usually ARE saving your game, it is just that the storage is yourself. Usually the password is the internal representation of the region of memory that stores your progress + a checksum

I have wondered if the warp zones in Super Mario Bros and Super Mario Bros 3 were actually intended to allow players a way to return close to where they left off if they weren’t able to complete the game in one sitting.

Loved the Save Blocks in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door (also in Super Paper Mario) as not only did they fit in universe with the jumping to “break” the block, but they usually signified shit was about to go down in the next area once saving was complete.

A cool thing Suikoden II did if you had data from the first game on your memory card: when you met returning party members, their levels and equipment would be (partially) carried over from the first game. So if Flik was Level 99 in the first game, you'd meet him at Level 40 in the sequel. And man was it awesome to have him plow through enemy mobs in single attacks while the new characters are still struggling to do decent damage. It was just really neat to have all your hard work from the first game carry over into the second in some way. It also unlocked a sidequest where you could recruit the main character of the first game, and he'd even have the exact same name you gave him. So that was cool too.

As someone who was obsessed over saving my game progress any chance I got when I was younger, this resonated with me on a greater level. Great video!

The original Crash Bandicoot on the PS1 has one of the most awkward save systems I've ever seen. There are only three scenarios that let you save: 1. Reaching the end of a Tawna Bonus Round. This saves your level completion progress, but you can only attempt it once per playthrough of the level. 2. Reaching the end of a Cortex Bonus Round and obtaining its Key. This saves the fact that the Key was collected, but again, you only get one attempt without having to restart the level. 3. Collecting a Gem, which requires you to break every box in the level without dying. This saves the fact that the Gem was collected, but outside of the secret levels, it doesn't save your level completion progress.

I don’t like automatic saves. Like sometimes I’ll want to have a laugh and just run through a dangerous area really quickly and take a lot of risks, just for the fun of it. If I lose a load of health/ammo it doesn’t matter, because I’ll just make sure not to save it afterwards. But with automatic saves I can’t do that, because then it’ll save, ruining my playthrough.

Everytime I defeat a difficult boss in a videogame I have only one thing on my mind “LEMME SAVE!!!”

I forget if it was Xenogears or Xenosaga, but there was one scene where you go into a factory where they were making save points and you could use most of them.

I love it when a sequel continues where the last one left off and let's you bring over your save. Feels like the journey is continuing. The Nier series also does some interesting things concerning game saves.

I've always wanted a video talking about this, great job man!

I'm a big fan of 90s era JRPGs, so the whole saving when you can I really feel on a spiritual level. Breath of fire, which was featured in this video, is a game I played a LOT of

notification gang

Massive respect for blurring the P5 spoiler.

I have a distinct memory of my dad frustratingly driving us to Toys R Us on a Friday night so we could get a Ps1 memory card because he and I were tired of not being able to finish Crash Bandicoot 2

this guy has a great channel

I love Kingdom Comes savior schnaps saving mechanic. If you "quick save" before a fight you have to deal with the debuff that is the effect of alcohol on Henry.

I can't remember how I found your channel, but it gives me major Scott the Woz vibes and I absolutely love it. Keep up the quality videos

Interesting rec. I recently played my gamecube and it instantly brought back memories of getting to those save points after making progression in a game. Been replaying a lot of my old games catalogs and it's nice to come back to it. I kinda am tried with modern games as well, so this is a great diversion at the moment. Thanks youtube for this cool recommendation.

Ratchet and Clank had probably the coolest bonuses for having save data In the first game, you’re told by the CEO of Gadgetron that you have to be with the company for two years to get a discount when buying their weapons. Two years after the first game, you get the third game Up Your Arsenal. If you have save data for after you get the discount from the first game, you get to actually use the discount and buy weapons earlier than intended. Not just that, but if you have save data from the first or second game, some of the weapons you unlocked in that game will be free in their respective sequels

Sonic Mega Collection Plus also had an interesting mechanic if you had save data from other games. It would unlock extra games for you to play. I think If you had Sonic Heroes data you would get Comix Zone and The Ooze. And boy, did I love Comix Zone x)

i LOVE this channel, short videos but very very entertaining, especially appreciate the flashing lights warning u do for every video

I’ve been going down a bit of a rabbit hole on video game hardware and system mechanics, so this was a very fortuitous upward! It’s always fun hearing you talk about random video game stuff.

The coolest way to save has always been, and will always be, having to go to church and confess our sins to save in the Dragon Quest games.

Amazing video!! Made me remember those weekends where I would leave my cheap knock off nes on at night because I couldn't finish mario, and in the morning it would be all hot xD

There's a personal favorite PS2 RPG of mine called Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter that integrated saving into the gameplay as a risk/reward system. In short the game is meant to be replayed multiple times and you get ranked in the end. Saving ties into this ranking and you also have a limited number of saves via save tokens. If you want the best rank you want to beat the whole game without saving once. Getting good ranks is incentivised as it opens up more parts of the game/story on future playthroughs. That said it still has a quick save feature. It doesn't count as a "save" in terms of your rank as it just lets you quit the game/turn off your PS2. It goes away once it's loaded so you can't use it to continue if you die.

Saving in metroid is always cool and the save rooms in resident evil are a nice break with some chill music great video and interesting topic man!

First time seeing your channel, good video. keep up the nice work

Simple, to the point and highly enjoyable. That was a good video.

I love saving in Kiseki/Trails games that gets carried over to future games, seeing all the changed minor dialogues depending on your choices in previous games and getting some freebies from your bracer/detective/academy points was nice

One game that used saving in a really interesting way is Nier: Automata. It used it to enhance the experience which is something games don't usually do as it's such a mundane thing.

I never trust when the game has auto save, I am never sure if I will lose what I did even thought the game tell me that the last save was X secs ago. Just an habit from playing so many games where you need to manually save.

My favorite example of games giving you bonuses for having an existing save file from another game is Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando. If you have an existing save file of Ratchet & Clank 1, then you can access most of your weapons from that game. Those weapons aren't that useful in Going Commando, but it's still a cool feature.

super informative and cool video!! never knew about how password saves worked; they're almost like "legal" cheat codes! also the Metroid password goofs are highly entertaining LOL

The thing about Resident Evil is that originally it was more about exploration than combat or getting resources or any other type of progression. It was what you *knew* about the mansion and its secrets. Once you know the jumpscare or the puzzle solution, that isn't leaving your brain even if you have to load a point 20 minutes earlier. Even then, what took you 20 minutes might only take you 3 minutes now with your new knowledge. Combat is only a failsafe for not knowing where you are, or you use it to get rid of obstacles like bosses or zombies in commonly used hallways. This is why in REmake they redid most of the puzzles and added crimsonheads. I like to think about ink ribbons like a weird mix of a roguelite mechanic in a metroidvania. Speaking of which, odd that savescumming wasn't touched upon like in crpgs where you f5 -> roll dice -> f9 ad nauseum, or dark soul's infamous save system that tries to make you live with your mistakes. And what about devs who go out of their way to make save editing as cryptic as possible.What about exploits in games involving save/reloading. There's honestly a lot but I don't expect an 8 minute video to cover all of it and I respect that.

About save data carrying over, the best example in my opinion is the Kiseki series. The games are structured in such a way that all the games are connected. The series is divided into multiple arcs, and each arc has multiple games. The games in each arc take place immediately after the events of the preceding game, and recognize your previous save files. So if you helped an NPC in the previous game, the next game acknowledges it through dialogue. You also get item bonuses and carry over your level. It gets insane when the 10th game, Trails into Reverie, counts save data from the past SIX WHOLE GAMES on PC, since it serves as the finale for those games. Keep in mind, these six games have been building up since 2010 all the way up to 2020. So literally a decades worth of clear data. And thats not even mentioning that the series has an overarching plot that has been going on since 2004. You won't understand the plot if you haven't played all the previous games. This means that Nihon Falcom probably has the most loyal fanbase in gaming. Like imagine sticking with a series for that long lol, its been 20 years.

Nice vid also I always wondered what the canonical reason was for saving like for kingdom hearts was there just a random save there and everyone was like “ehh okay”

that ps2 memory card hurt my soul 0:33

As someone who started gaming in the 80s, I still have this tendency to say to people who are in my house “I just gotta save real fast and then we can go”. It’s like hardwired into my brain.

Believe me, I can go on and on for hours about how genius the saving in Zelda majoras mask is.

I generally make sure to save all the time when playing a video game, though it's hasn't taken me until relatively recently to keep multiple saves. You never know what might happen! In the Dragon Quest series, your usual save points are churches. Sometimes they'll let you save after major story moments as well. This series didn't get a proper auto-save until Dragon Quest 11 (technically 10, but that's a Japan-only MMO). And yet I still always save at churches in 11 on instinct despite there being an auto save.

I cant remeber how much progress I lost as I kid because I always hated taking the time to save, mainly in final fantasy games. I hated the fact that I had to stop playing for a couple of seconds.

great content keep it up g

Legend of the Mystical Ninja had an obscene password system

And even after all of this, I still manually save after the auto save. It's a matter of trust and betrayal.

It was really weird playing Yakuza from 0 to current day because first you had to go find a phone booth to aave and then all if a sudden they were gone and you could just save in the menu

Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 is an interesting case as it’s an online multiplayer shooter so it obviously has auto saving but there is option to make a manual save in the game. I appreciate having that manual save after an hours long play session, it feels satisfying to wrap up the game with a final stop to the save button. It feels less satisfying when it’s a online game with only auto saving, and you just awkwardly quit the game and just trust your progress is saved.

The thing you mentioned about how your leftover save data from the first game allows you to continue the second game with what you had from the first game is something I have actually thought about since I was a kid in the '90s. I always thought it would be so cool if in a game's sequel you would continue with exactly what you had left from the previous game. One thing I thought was really cool about how some games access save data from other games is in metal gear solid when psychomantis will read your mind but what he's doing is actually reading your memory card to make it appear as if he knows exactly what you like in real life. I didn't play it on the PlayStation but I remember playing metal gear Solid the twin snakes on GameCube and even though I was a young teenager at the time it just shocked me so much when psychomantis said that I love playing Super smash Bros Melee of course for me to realize not too long after it's because the game is reading my memory card.

JUSTIN BAILEY and then a bunch of hyphens is the Metroid one I used that gave you all the stuff with the Zero Suit, I never realized there were others that did the same thing!

One cool thing is that in Denpa Men 2 and 3 you could transfer the hero from the original first game and the Denpa Men you caught (excluding Crystal, Jasper and Amber).

0:34 Not even Psycho Mantis would be able to read that memory card.

My favourite way a game has done saving is tales of berseria, where you still have save points as checkpoints where you can make infinite saves but you also can quicksave but quick saves only have 1 slot so it will always overwrite your previous quicksave, so then you can use save points as normal saves but if you need to do something and exit the game you can quicksave to exit the game and the quicksave also doesn't get deleted upon loading.

In Yakuza 0 you can only save in the phone booths. Makes sense with the setting in the 80's... really cool.

RU-vid's recommendations got actually good? Lol Subscribed!

I was hoping you were going to talk a bit about save rotation for games with multiple story paths, and also perpetual saving as popularized by Souls (aka real time saving, or no do-overs). There’s also the interesting case of using saves as a metanarrative device, like the indie game Oneshot. There’s also the odd case of roguelites/likes, which record different “levels” of progress. You usually have at least 3: game feature unlocks/permanent progress upgrades, which are always permanent, consumables that are maintained between runs but are ultimately discarded if not used (Rogue Legacy comes to mind), and one-time saves, which “pause” the game but don’t let you rewind. You did cover the last one though!

Metroid prime 2 had save rooms like other Metroid games, but much like RE4 it had this whole “safe haven” vibe. Those are my favorites as from a narrative standpoint and as a play both Samus and I feel relieved to endure dark aether’s atmosphere

Good old save points

Then there are games like Undertale and Deltarune that integrate the act of saving into the lore

The Japanese version of Metroid on the Famicom's Disk System add-on has an actual save feature just like Zelda. Playable suitless Samus is only available in the NES version though.

I love that you say "these batteries could last decades" while showing the game infamous for barely lasting 5 years

Ratchet 2 and 3 have bonuses for playing previous game. In 3 you can get an "employee discount" promised during Ratchet 2, pretty funny if you ask me. You also get some weapons even from 1 and 2.

My favorite thing about the Memory cards was the games that allowed you to play with your character oj your friend's system, like in Digimon World 4

When I was a young warthog playing Twilight Princess, I would forget to save regularly and just keep my console on for weeks at the time. Well, I went on a trip with my grandparents and my dad saw my GameCube was left on so he did the dad thing to do and turned it off. I was on the City in the Sky dungeon but I hadn't saved since Lakebed Temple. Even though that's one of my favorite games of all time, I never played it again. I've got another one where we had a family PS2. I was playing Final Fantasy X and had gotten all the way to the Bevelle Temple. My brother didn't have enough space on the memory card to save a different game of his so he deleted my save file. Never played that game again either.

7:51 Last time this RU-vidr last played the Breath of the Wild game in 2018 and started again 5 years later

My childhood copy of Zelda 1 for nes still has a functioning battery. It is 35 years old.

I just KNEW Persona 5 was gonna come up on the cool music save room part

seeing that crow in lisa was always a sigh of relief 😮‍💨

2:38 The greatest game of all time Blue Sphere, Werster called and wants his line back.

I love old saving screens

I love your videos fam

As a kid, memory cards were a pain because many parents just never bought them. I played so many games from the beginning over and over again just because I and many of my friends didn't own memory cards for our consoles. It's not like they were very expensive but for whatever reason I just didn't really understand how important they were.

My favorite example of save files doing something in other games is Mario Galaxy save data making it very easy to unlock Rosalina in Mario Kart Wii. It's almost impossible to get her without that save data, but stupid easy to get her with it.

I gotta admit that whole pizza time bit felt like it'd transition to a sponsor at any minute lol Great video!

great video great channel

The record for save files for me is the trails in the sky trilogy,which gives you 1000 independent save files on the steam version

Makes me think of: Majora's Mask owl statues (quick saves) Golden Sun's save transfer to it's sequel Alien: Isolation manual saving in a modern game for extra player tension

I clicked on this video randomly and didn't expected to see Joueur du grenier in it

I always appreciated games that let you save from the pause-main menu.

I like those immersive save points. Whether it be requiring items or changing the time of day or progressing the story along. I also like unique game difficulties that limit or change saving in games as well. Very unique game mechanic

sometimes you can see a combination were you can eater save or use the password system the original Rayman did exactly that (least the PS1 version does) however if a game today has the option for you to manually save, even with the auto-save I still manually save, sometimes up to multiple times in a row, just to make sure it's saved

Who are you and why is this video amazing. I’m subscribed

good video!

There's also differences in what exactly gets saved. Pokémon where you restart in the exact same spot, vs Ocarina of Time where you can save anywhere but will restart at certain spots. Mario games that saved progress but not lives/powerups, etc.

Pizza Tower jumpscare got me

Back when Naughty Dog's primary mission was to develop cool video games and not act as a giant ego-stroking device for Neil Druckmann, they implemented transparent automatic save on the PS2 for the Jak & Daxter series and it blew my Goddamn mind. They developed a multitasking engine that allowed the game to interleave running the game with I/O to the MEMORY CARD (8MB) (for PlayStation® 2) in a fine-grained manner, obviating the need for save points and stopping the player's flow in the game.

i was expecting Silent Hill 4 being mentioned but surprised it wasnt

Steams cloud saves are so good, I started doing some side quests in Yakuza 0 again and saw that the saves from 4 years ago were still backed up there.

An example of save loyalty that I think is worth pointing out are the Loyalty Rewards in Forza Motorsport/Horizon. In Motorsport 6: If you played Motorsport 4... You would get the 2009 Ford Focus RS, and if you played Motorsport 5... You would get the 2013 Ford Shelby GT500. In Horizon 3: If you played Horizon 2... You would get the Local Motors Rally Fighter, and if you played Motorsport 6... You would get the Ford F-150 Raptor. In Horizon 4: if you played the demo, you would get the McLaren Senna, if you played Horizon 3... you would get the 2017 Ford F-150 Raptor, and if you played Motorsport 7... you would get the 2018 Ford Mustang GT. In Horizon 5... The list is as follows: Horizon 1: 2013 Dodge SRT Viper GTS Horizon 2: 2014 Lamborghini Huracán LP 610-4 Horizon 3: 2016 Lamborghini Centenario LP 770-4 Horizon 4: 2018 McLaren Senna Motorsport 5: 2013: McLaren P1 Motorsport 6: 2017 Ford GT Motorsport 7: 2018 Porsche 911 GT2 RS Note: The new Forza Motorsport doesn't show up on the Forza Rewards page on the wiki, so I don't know about that kettle of fish. Prediction time: When Forza Horizon 6 or the next Motorsport comes out: If you played Horizon 5... say hello to the Mercedes-AMG ONE.

Well said.

2:08 You really used a Joueur du Grenier video? That blows my mind!

i was not expecting that abrupt cut to pizza tower

but if Yoshi dosen't leave tips, I don't get to eat tonight

the teeth marks on the PS2 memory card though... :')

To be fair, pokémon games from RBY to USUM only let you have one save because of how massive a pokémon save file is for a cartridge, even on 3ds.

so fkn good

damn this is a chill channel when high

I see that senses fail reference at 5:06 👀