Tain said:
I can't get behind this, and it's my biggest problem with the "no checkpoints" stance. I don't want the burden to be on me.
Include suspend saves if you have to, just don't give me total control of everything. Having to pace out reasonable save points is not what I'd consider an enjoyable part of a game.
We just don't agree at all, essentially.
While I do ultimately think that save anywhere benefits any game, it is true that in some genres it fits more perfectly than it does others. This is reflected in the histories of save systems in various genres.
Games that make hard saves in between levels are also decent, though. Save anywhere is generally better, but if you get a permanent save at the end of every level completed, things often work out decently. For some reason, though, I make a differentiation between that and save systems that use checkpoints... maybe I shouldn't, and should think of reaching each next checkpoint as "reaching the next level" (and indeed, that is often the case)... the two certainly should be considered very similarly. Still, they do have some differences, if mostly in feel.
The games with the most obvious problems with save anywhere are, as I said, arcade-style games where score counts and save anywhere would make it easy to abuse the game and get an artificially high score. This is why I said that suspend and level select are perhaps best for such games. However, it is true that with emulation, you get save anywhere, and this has not stopped people from having score competitions with specified rules that just leave it up to each person to not cheat. People usually follow such rules, as far as I've seen... I'm sure some cheat, but really, they're only hurting themselves. And the benefit, of being able to actually finish games which were made to be ridiculously hard, is a good one.
For other types of games, though, any potential benefits of not having save anywhere quickly fall away. There are some types of games that, even on PCs, traditionally had (or have) saving that only takes place between missions or levels (autosaves, generally) instead of having save anywhere. These genres include space sims, mech sims, 2d and 3d platformers (for the most part), and few others, though scattered sports, FPS, RPG, or strategy games also would have limited save systems.
Space mech sims -- for some reason, PC mech and space sims traditionally included auto-saving between missions but did not allow you to save during missions. This save system works reasonably well. It is true that if you messed up, you had to start over... but these games were usually simulations, so realism and the idea that the player should be punished for failure put save systems like that in place. I never minded these; sure, some missions are hard, but once you complete the mission, you know it will save. It works reasonably well. Missions need to be balanced for this, of course, but in most such games they were. Because of the freedom you are given in many such games, something like a "checkpoint" wouldn't work here, usually; and even if it would, it would impact realism. Save anytime could work, but would not be implemented because of how much easier it would make the games. That's okay... not everything has to be easy.
Platformers, both 2d and 3d, also usually used save-between-missions, not save-anywhere, even on the PC. Platformers which didn't allow you to save were somewhat rare on the PC by the late '80s, quite different from (and much better than) the situation on consoles at that time. But like space and mech sims, games in this genre have clear levels to finish, so such a breakdown works. Levels are also usually not particularly long. I can only think of a few PC platformers with true save anywhere... but in them, it does help (for instance, Claw or Realms of Chaos). But generally, being able to save anytime between levels works well in this genre.
For sports games, I think there is absolutely no excuse for all sports games not to have save anywhere. The first sports game I loved was Hardball III, a PC baseball game from 1992. It had save anywhere, so you could save a game in progress. It was a great feature, but it was one I took for granted in the genre... until I played some console baseball games and learned the horror of "you can only save between games". (Note that Hardball III, '94, and '95 for the Sega Genesis DO have save anywhere! It can be done on consoles too!)
Some early FPSes also only allowed you to save between missions (Dark Forces, for instance), but as missions got longer and longer, in-mission saving quickly became an obvious necessity. It did the genre nothing but good -- Dark Forces was very frustrating because of how one mistake would make you restart the entire mission over from the start. In this genre, save anywhere is always good. I understand that save anywhere in an FPS can reduce it to an exercise in "quicksave, get past challenge, quicksave", but even so, the sheer frustration and annoyance of savepoint locations outweighs this.
I guess, then, that that is my real point: It depends on where your save points are placed, how common they are, and how easy they are to use. There are games with checkpoint-based (not end of level based, but checkpoint based) saving where I didn't mind it much, such as Oni or Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance. Well, the long save times for BGDA were annoying, but save points were frequent, so it was never a big hassle. But in games where the checkpoints are far too far apart, or there are no checkpoints (or saving) in dungeons so that if you mess up there is absolutely no safety net... well, that's just annoying. For examples of how NOT to do save systems, again see Secret of Mana (I'll get into this soon).
But this gets into the related discussion of how much people should be punished for being killed in games... as this post makes clear, I'm not entirely certain of what I think on that matter.
I do think that save anywhere works with that philosophy, though. If you want to make it easier and save more so you are punished less for dying (like, say, Zelda: WW or TP), you can. But if you want to save less and make it harder so you are punished more for dying (like any Zelda up to and including OoT), you can do that too. It's up to you... it's not so much the lenient save system as it is the fact that it is forced on you that I really have a problem with with saving in a WW or TP. In games like that, I want to choose for myself when to save...
But either way, it is possible to show how save anywhere IS better. For instance, look at the Mana series. The first game in the series, Final Fantasy Adventure, had save anywhere. It was true save anywhere, and you could save to either save slot at any time, even during boss battles, and it saved your exact location and status, as well as the enemies'. It worked fantastically well. FFA has by far the best save system in the Mana series. Secret of Mana uses save points, and limits them ridiculously by only putting them in towns. You can warp back to town with the rope item, but that item doesn't work in boss fights, so if you reach a boss at too low a level you're doomed and can do nothing but lose a lot of progress. I don't think the fact that FFA let you save anywhere hurt the game in any way, even though it did let you get permanently stuck (if you get into certain parts of certain dungeons without enough keys or mattocks to get out). Perhaps that would annoy some, but if you use common sense it works fine, and being able to save anytime was one thing that helped make the game great. It's unfortunate that aside from handheld RPGs which often have suspend saves and very rare cases like FFA, console RPGs and action-RPGs almost never let you save anytime.
PC RPGs also have save anywhere, though some of them (the Infinity Engine (Baldur's Gate, etc) don't let you save during combat. It certainly doesn't affect the games or make them easy. Console RPGs or action-RPGs very rarely have that kind of save system, though the Lunar series games all have save anywhere in the overworld but don't let you save in battle. Of course there were also PC RPGs with more limited save systems, like many MMOs, Diablo, etc, but those at least always save your character's state when you quit, even if they do not save your location.
PC graphic adventure games always had save anywhere. Consoles got their hands on them (Resident Evil, Silent Hill, etc) and what happened? Savepoints! Blah. Not good. It doesn't help them.