Save States

Autosave is a standard setting you see in games since it stops the sad story of so many stalling their progress from loss of saves and system shutdowns that strive to occur in situations solely when something special is starting or in a situation where your stuck in a sequence set up for the sake of story that can’t be skipped. However, some games still have the standard of selecting saves and saving through save points. These games serve as not so subtle nods to services in select games from some time back where save rooms were seen as standard for saving and suspending progress. The saves were spaced out so that you couldn’t save scum or to simplify it, save after every step of success to slowly but steadily succeed in pressing on to the subsequent save point and securing new save data. This style of spacing out saves was to strengthen your skills so you could step up and subdue anyone stopping you and have them serve as stepping stones for your survival. However, statistically speaking this served as a slow start and lead to stumbling as spaces between saves were stretched out. The standard setting of difficulty was set so that in games staying alive was a sticking point. So some games from back then served to stop people from speeding ahead and had them survive using their skills at play to succeed. Some of these games have seen a surge of strength in sales due to select titles showing up on some online stores as software to store on your system instead of a standard cartridge or disk that was scanned to start up the game. This set the standard for save states.

You see save states were so special since you could sync up with saves that you set yourself after setting yourself up for success. If you slipped up and suffered some sort of setback or searched around and stumbled upon story elements that stopped you from searching for secrets, then you could simply reset by selecting that save state you saved beforehand to save yourself from such simple slip ups. They served as a simple scouting feature to survey upcoming spaces and spend time searching for the simplest path to successfully securing the objective. Some games simply spend so little time at the start showing you where to start that starting off can be staggering. Shouldn’t it be somewhat fine to save when you see that you’ve spent so much time without a save station in sight and surely could have something shut down the system causing nothing to be saved. Sure it can be started up again, but some seconds are meant to be well spent and no one wants to sucker themselves by not saving when saving could save their souls. Okay, I should stop using such sardonic statements and stick to the story before this starts settling into simple sophistry. Save states can save a run since you can start and stop at your say so rather than scrounging around for save stations and being strung along by the game’s setting and story. It may seem like I am saying that this setting simplifies gaming, but that’s only sort of what I’m suggesting.

You see, using saves in such sizable amounts is most suitable for starting off and sticking through or in games with small chances of success where lives are used sparingly. However, when you stop straying from the story the game has started you on and you can search through without surprises than such save scumming is slowly used less and less, which can serve as a slip up as well. You see, if you save state, the save state starts back from the last save to start you off from that starting point, but that should suggest to you that saves done after that serve no purpose since the game simply seems to suggest those saves were not sound. The save state works on a system memory rather than what’s stored in the software that supports the game you play. So what happens when you shut down the software and start up using the system as the structure for your starting point. Let me say it more simply. What start do you start at when restarting the system without saving securely on the system itself? Its solution is to start up the system memory that used saved as your last save state. Now if that save state starts off where you seemed to be then that’s stupendous and a stroke of serendipity since you sought to be sure to save somewhat consistently. If you stop updating you save states and slipped up by loading in a save that starts at a point you spent several attempts on, that stings. Surely, it’s a shame but you can so simply strip all the stuff you have succeeded in by starting up an old save that sets you back somewhere closer to the start of your suffering. Simply put, shortcuts can serve you well in some games, but shortcuts can also serve as a stumbling block rather than a solution should you be careless and hit a snag you couldn’t see. Sometimes it may be simpler to just stick to the story and stay safe. See you all sometime again!