The ability to save and load a game at any point during the game is a very game-breaking advantage to the player. This bothers me to a degree in most games, especially during situations where you're "gambling" in an RPG, say, the Witcher, or where you only have a limited number of chances to proc an item spawn or event based on a percentage, like using an assassin to kill a general in the Total War games. If there's a 50% chance your assassin will kill the general, but if it fails, the assassin dies... just reload until he wins. If you lose the bet, or don't get the item, just reload and do it again. This ability to save and load at will completely negates the chances of losing the bet or not getting the item. The only drawback is the inconvenience to load & reload if you keep losing, which makes the entire endeavor boring and tedious.

Older games, like Splatterhouse 2 did not allow for saving at all. Other older games like SMB Allstars had save files and would save your items and lives, the world you were on, and any sub-castles you destroyed, but would reset all of the levels in the world (AFAIK). Games like Shining Force could be saved by using in-game scribes like a priest that you had to manually visit with your party during non-combat situations. Games like Castlevania Bloodlines or Demon's Crest or Megaman X would give out passwords based on what you had accomplished in the game. Sometimes this only "recorded" general accomplishments but left out specifics.

Games like Super Mario World could be saved but also had checkpoints to save your mid-level progress in case you died during the level. Some games can only be saved at checkpoints automatically and others use checkpoint beacons or crystals, like in some Final Fantasy games. I'm pretty sure some only autosave, and some only save on exiting the game.

I know that abusing save/load is a fault of the will, but in my opinion (which I know most of you don't share) any instance in a game where the game becomes too easy unless the player restricts themselves from using normal game features is more a fault of the game design itself. I prefer games that can be saved only rarely and between rigorous interaction.

I think that any RPG game like KotOR or Witcher that involves a gamble system/side game (pazaak/dice poker) should warn the player before gambling that it will save your game immediately after each set and match, and that the player should only be allowed to have one save file per character created.

Do you agree? What is your favorite save/load method? What games use it? Which methods did I leave out? Do you propose a perfect save/load system? Do you derive ultimate climactic pleasure from abusing the save/load system to the maximum capacity?

i would disagree about it being game breaking because its not a situation where you cannot progress unless you save and load as you described. The proper classification would be to call it an exploit.

The value of not being forced to repeat game progress because you had to turn the game off before the next save point, out weighs the "problem" of other people using the feature to their ability to make the game easier for themselves.

i also like having multiple saves for one character so that i can easily explore dialog options and see the results of actions taken in a quest, that way when i RP the game later on i don't get any immersion breaking surprises.

I would like to meet somewhere in he middle, but in games such as Beth makes its almostnecessary with all the bugs that may occur, to vast and to many points to have set save points.

But for a more linear orstory based game I hink we should have save points.

Reallydepends on the game.

I started playing Deus Ex: HR today. I would have dropped the game on the spot if it didn't allow manual saving. The intro and first section require too much trial and error as you get used to enemy AI, controls, and how freakin' soft your cyberdude is.

I always, always prefer a game I can save anywhere. Not so I can abuse it, but so I can play around with tactics at will, and not have to repeat the same boring sequences every time the difficulty goes wonky.