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[Off-Kilter]

Alternatively, games with multiple save slots that "lock" you into a single slot for a playthrough.

What a frustrating design choice. God forbid I want to relive a moment from the story without having to play through the whole game again (games with mission/level replay alleviates this issue somewhat). After a particularly great boss fight or mission I often find myself continuing on a new save and keep the old one if given the option.

As great as they are, Souls games are guilty of this. I know why they are how they are, what with the games autosaving every 10 seconds, but I think it would be pretty cool to have any boss available to re-fight on demand, wouldn't you say?

But the worst, the fucking worst, is when you have games that have branching storylines, alternative missions, multiple endings, etc. Games with choices that lead to very different outcomes, often levels exclusive to the path you chose.

Far Cry 4, which I'm playing at the moment, has to be the worst offender of this crap. I like the game overall but man the save system is dumb as rocks. At several moments in the story, the game presents you with choices. Your choices lead to specific missions (and endings) and the missions locked behind the other choices can only be played by starting a new game and going the other route. But wait! The game only has one save slot so starting a new game means losing all progress, in a 20+ hour open-world collectable-driven game. Who thought of this shit?

For the record yes I am well aware that some systems offer USB and/or cloud save backup, but that to me seems like an unnecessary hurdle placed on the consumer to circumvent design choices that were poor to begin with.

 

[Pillville]

Assassin's Creen Unity. One save slot.........AND IT GOT CORRUPTED............. lost my progress 1/2 through the game, and never touched the game again.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Id disagree that Farcry 4 is the worst offender since the difference between choices is so ridiculously small.

 

[Count of Monte Sawed-Off]

Assassin's Creen Unity. One save slot.........AND IT GOT CORRUPTED............. lost my progress 1/2 through the game, and never touched the game again.

You actually came out ahead there.

 

[SalvaPot]

Pokemon, but this is so you are forced to trade to catch em all.

 

[WickedLaharl]

You'd probably go insane playing Until Dawn

 

[darkside31337]

Pokemon. Super frustrating.

 

[MegaSackman]

Until Dawn... -_-

I was playing with a friend but he got to episode 6 and we had to stop. So he'll have to play all over again because I wanted to play the game with my sister and had no other choice but erase his progress and start a new game.

 

[Regiruler]

Sonic Lost World does, for no discernible reason other than "they forgot"

It's annoying, because on the off-chance you want to rewatch the cut-scenes (which are actually fairly well done), you have to replay the game from scratch.

 

[NipplesAndToes23]

Pokemon, but this is so you are forced to trade to catch em all.

Yeah, I thought Gen 1 & 2 Pokemon were the last games to do this. Are you really telling me that there are games in the current generation that still have only one save slot?
Shit, I thought Pokemon only had 1 because of hardware/software limitations, but games in 2015?

 

[Starwolf_UK]

Animal Crossing kind of. There are four save slots but only village and in the case of New Leaf only one of you gets to be the mayor! Plus it features a guy who gets mad if you try to savescum.

But then again given Animal Crossing has some inspiration from a rouge like (lots of different items, random events and randomly generated village) restricted saves is par for course for the genre.

I'd say quite a lot of games do it is as in your *gamer* profile/account only needs one. If someone else wants to play they do it on their *gamer* profile/account.

Yeah, I thought Gen 1 & 2 Pokemon were the last games to do this. Are you really telling me that there are games in the current generation that still have only one save slot?
Shit, I thought Pokemon only had 1 because of hardware/software limitations, but games in 2015?

Technically all Pokemon games from the GBA have two slots but the second slot is a backup for when you save and turn the power off before finishing (which in Gen VI is really hard to do given how fast the game saves).

 

[Notor!ousG]

Dark Souls would be broken if they implement that. Besides, Dark Souls 2 gives you the option to strengthen a bonfire so you can fight the boss again (but them stronger)

 

[Mauricio_Magus]

Etrian Odyssey 1,2,3,4 and Untold did this, but 2 Untold finally dropped it and we have multiple save files now.

 

[Serpens007]

Call of duty. My sister-in-law's brother sometimes comes visit her when I'm at work, and he plays the campaign. I haven't finished it yet, so he just plays and overwrite my progress. ugh. I just can't allow myself to save mid-mission because he will surely play and that will happen again. It sort of kills my will to play it anymore.


I also don't like that MGSV now only has one slot. My brother wants to play it, so he will have to play in another account.

 

[sixteen-bit]

One of the 3DS resident evil games have this, and what's worse is it's impossible to delete.

I think they did it to curb used sales.

 

[Blackleg-sanji1]

Pokemon is the worst offender of this and dont say its to encourage trading because even with multiple save slots you still need to trade to catch em all

 

[Special C]

Alternatively, games with multiple save slots that "lock" you into a single slot for a playthrough.

What a frustrating design choice. God forbid I want to relive a moment from the story without having to play through the whole game again (games with mission/level replay alleviates this issue somewhat). After a particularly great boss fight or mission I often find myself continuing on a new save and keep the old one if given the option.

As great as they are, Souls games are guilty of this. I know why they are how they are, what with the games autosaving every 10 seconds, but I think it would be pretty cool to have any boss available to re-fight on demand, wouldn't you say?

But the worst, the fucking worst, is when you have games that have branching storylines, alternative missions, multiple endings, etc. Games with choices that lead to very different outcomes, often levels exclusive to the path you chose.

Far Cry 4, which I'm playing at the moment, has to be the worst offender of this crap. I like the game overall but man the save system is dumb as rocks. At several moments in the story, the game presents you with choices. Your choices lead to specific missions (and endings) and the missions locked behind the other choices can only be played by starting a new game and going the other route. But wait! The game only has one save slot so starting a new game means losing all progress, in a 20+ hour open-world collectable-driven game. Who thought of this shit?

For the record yes I am well aware that some systems offer USB and/or cloud save backup, but that to me seems like an unnecessary hurdle placed on the consumer to circumvent design choices that were poor to begin with.

I'm going to disagree. It makes choices more meaningful. If you reload a save just to "see everything" it jumbles the narrative and its no longer "your story" and becomes disjointed.

Now that's just my outlook and I guess I can't really argue for not having the choice, but I think games are designed that way for this very reason.

 

[jonno394]

If you don't count a save per mode, then Zombi/Zombiu. Really painful when you lose a survivor you've been with for a few hours.

 

[cyberheater]

I agree OP. It's very frustrating.

 

[DiipuSurotu]

Diablo I & II

Dragon Quest IX

 

[Reset]

Pokemon. But I know why they do it, they want you spend $40 on the other version which is 99% identical. But I won't, I'm not a fool.

 

[Podge293]

far cry 2 was the absolute worse for me... had a save corrupting bug, i was about 65% through the main campaign... havent went back it to, never plan to either

 

[aett]

Pokemon is the worst offender of this and dont say its to encourage trading because even with multiple save slots you still need to trade to catch em all

"Only one save slot? But my younger sibling wants to play/I wanted to try out another starter without losing my current file. Well, I guess if I buy another copy, I can get the other version and be able to trade Pokemon."

 

[Off-Kilter]

Pokemon, but this is so you are forced to trade to catch em all.

Ahh good one. Forgot about this.

Yeah it sucks when you got a youngin around the house that wants to start his own adventure in Pokemans and you're 6 gyms in.

These days we just get two versions.

Nintendo won.

 

[Pilgrimzero]

Dead Rising, I believe.

 

[DarkTom]

If you don't count a save per mode, then Zombi/Zombiu. Really painful when you lose a survivor you've been with for a few hours.

Reload a save in survivor mode would just be cheating though. Actually in this case if there was not a single save slot it would be a mistake.

 

[Orin GA]

100 Save Slots and im gonna use as many as I can!

 

[ODDI]

Watch Dogs

 

[Fractal]

Yeah, it's common in Ubisoft games... I never encountered a save corruption in any of their titles, but yeah, I'd still prefer more control over how I handle my saves.

 

[Guymelef]

iirc Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, one save that you can't delete.

 

[georly]

Mercenaries 3D won't even let you clear the save file.

edit: god dammit

iirc Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, one save that you can't delete.

 

[Markitron]

Assassin's Creen Unity. One save slot.........AND IT GOT CORRUPTED............. lost my progress 1/2 through the game, and never touched the game again.

Sounds to me like you got lucky, that's 7 or 8 hours that you would never have gotten back.

 

[NCR Redslayer]

See, the reason that game freak dont freak another save slot is that then there would be an illicit pokemon black market

Spoiler

which kinda already exist.

 

[Elitist1945]

Yup. Until Dawn.

 

[GaryGodblood]

Virtues Last Reward on 3ds. The Vita version had two save slots lol.

 

[cyberheater]

Mercenaries 3D won't even let you clear the save file.

edit: god dammit

That is just plain dumb and stupid. No way would I buy a game like that.

 

[Dishy]

Dragon's Dogma. smh

Couldn't save before an encounter or switch characters. No second character without deleting your old one. Why?

 

[papo]

There are two cases, games that have a limited save slot, like Pokemon or games that lock you through a playthrough more recently GoW Ultimate.

I get the reason behind the locked playthrough, but sometimes options should exist. Maybe I may be looking in the wrong place, but I started GoW on Hardcore. I did it back in the day, but I got no coop partner and not much time. SO for now I stopped playing because I couldn't change the difficulty or didn't see a place how where to do it. In theses cases options should be available, even for a penalty.

The Pokemon case well it sucks because it is such a long game, but it's not like you are going to do many game changing things in there.

Games like Skyrim, Witcher NEED multiple unlimited save slots, not only for choices, but for many reason.

And then there are games that have 3 saves slots and that's it. I get that if they had more a game like Destiny could be exploited, but I still would want a 4th or 5th slot just to play around. Save stuff and then restart.

 

[Off-Kilter]

I'm going to disagree. It makes choices more meaningful. If you reload a save just to "see everything" it jumbles the narrative and its no longer "your story" and becomes disjointed.

Now that's just my outlook and I guess I can't really argue for not having the choice, but I think games are designed that way for this very reason.

For what it's worth, I don't play through both choices and then choose the one I like more. My choices are meaningful the first time. I put thought into them and make them part of my canon story, and then stick with them.

I merely want to go back at a later time to see what the other side is like. It's less about narrative purposes and more about getting the most content out of my gaming dollars.

 

[Jotamide]

One of the 3DS resident evil games have this, and what's worse is it's impossible to delete.

I think they did it to curb used sales.

Some 3DS games early in the 3DS' life did this, like RE Mercenaries 3D and Blazblue CS II. Luckily, there's a workaround that involves the user corrupting the data in order for the game to repair it and start anew. Annoying as fuck, but at least is an option.

 

[Fbh]

I like the Souls Games as they are. It gives everything you do more weight knowing that you can't simply load an earlier save file

 

[CadetMahoney]

ctrl+f Dogma

 

[Castef]

Alternatively, games with multiple save slots that "lock" you into a single slot for a playthrough.

What a frustrating design choice.

You want the best one?

Tower Of Souls, for Amiga.

This one.

Not only you have just 1 slot for saving. In order to enable it for each save you have to sacrify items from your inventory.

A nightmare.

(the game was fine, an ante-litteram Diablo)

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

I know why they are how they are, what with the games autosaving every 10 seconds, but I think it would be pretty cool to have any boss available to re-fight on demand, wouldn't you say?

This also encourages players to help out other players (if you want to replay a boss without starting over, you need to help other players fight that boss as a phantom).

 

[4Tran]

Isn't that the entire point of roguelikes and rogue-lites? A game, or a part of a game, are designed around this mechanic can make for very interesting gameplay. On the other hand, inserting this mechanic into a regular game can be excruciating. An example of this is the difference between the Vita and 3DS versions of Virtue's Last Light. The Vita version has three save slots while the 3DS version has only one. The game can both corrupt a save file and crash so the 3DS version can end up losing your only save.

 

[Bakkus]

Of games not mentioned, I remember The World Ends With You only had one save file.

 

[kagamin]

IIRC Ace Attorney games only had 1 save slot until Dual Destinies, though that really wasn't ever a problem.

 

[Peltz]

Captain Toad

Also Doki Doki Panic on Famicom Disk System won't even let you erase your file to start fresh :-/

 

[Fjordson]

It's always a bummer imo.

It sounds like MGS V only has one slot (and that it's just auto save) so it'll probably be a week or two before I get to play it now. Gonna let my wife beat it first.

 

[jonno394]

Reload a save in survivor mode would just be cheating though. Actually in this case if there was not a single save slot it would be a mistake.

Yeah it is a necessity for this game. Someone told me to back my save up to the cloud after every major point so thar I can complete survival mode. I told them that defeats the object of the mode!