Save bloats is just your save taking up more memory every time you save over it. Not sure if that is true, but it seems to be. Ever since I started deleting my saves and making new ones, I've noticed less glitches and crashes including that accursed shield charge glitch. Dont quote me on this, as I remember some saying this isnt true, but it seems to work.

Dont know what other explanation I could give for the better performance.

Idk about you but my save use to be 23MB and now it is 21MB. Been going down mainly because I am picking up all the dropped crap from enemies and selling them to shops so they will despawn.

I'll try to make new saves though and see what I can do.

I had no idea that stuff took up space.

My save file is 10 MB. Much smaller than what it used to be when I was saving over them. It used to be like 15-18mb.