Difficult games "saved" if played on emulation

[Kremiso]

i mean thanks to the savestates in first, but not only

Maximo on PS2 is my personal evil, played on real hardware it was imo hard as nails, also with the extra few save points;
imo it gains A LOT on emulation, a great tilte to re-discover and finally attempt a completition avoiding frustration :)

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24]

Do you have ANY IDEA how important emulation was for Pokémon games and challenges? Hunting and grinding are so much faster with speed up. Rewind and save states can save you from a bad RNG roll. The modern existence of these games is DEFINED by emulation’s impact on the scene.

Especially since the demand outstrips supply 20 to 1 for games that already have tens of millions of copies in existence.

 

[ciro64]

EVO: Search for Eden is straight up a better experience. This game has an alright amount of grinding, but it's dragged to the ground when the game punishes you by cutting your EXP in half each time you dies.

The bosses are pattern-based too, and trying to learn those patterns is incredibly punishing when the game takes away your EXP. The only sane way to advance without using save states is using a trick of evolving/devolving a cheap part of your body as a way to fully heal your HP on demand. Which is the counterpart of pausing an action game to eat food to heal your HP which isn't very fun to me.

My solution to this was to come up with a self-imposed challenge, where I'm allowed to use save states at the start of boss fights so I could retry them over and over at no cost, but I'm also not allowed to cheese through them by healing my HP. It became quite fun from there on out because despite the fights being pattern-based, they're quite interactive as well:

• You have to experiment with different builds and strategize with them
• Bosses flinches and gets knockback by your attacks, which can be combo-ed under specific situations. Managing to get those hits depends on your body parts and on the boss attributes as well
• Attacking bosses or changing your spacing between then affects their pattern

When in the middle of levels, I was a little more loose on save states, since those are more about grinding and getting from point A to B.

 

[diapered]

Never beat syphon filter as a kid, and definitely remember making use of save states for quick "retries" when I finally beat it recently >_< Am I just a casual, or does anyone else think this was hard There was a lot of unfair trial and error, imo and I kept getting lost >_<

 

[Spike's iconSpike]

Adventure Island 1 on NES, I always wanted to see the latter levels as a kid but it was so damn impossible (still is now) managed to do it abusing save states :s

 

[ciro64]

Do you have ANY IDEA how important emulation was for Pokémon games and challenges? Hunting and grinding are so much faster with speed up. Rewind and save states can save you from a bad RNG roll. The modern existence of these games is DEFINED by emulation’s impact on the scene.

I felt that when playing Mother 3. The engaging story is constantly interrupted by being padded with random fights and sometimes you have to grind as well. I don't think I'd have progressed nearly as much without an emulator.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24]

I felt that when playing Mother 3. The engaging story is constantly interrupted by being padded with random fights and sometimes you have to grind as well. I don't think I'd have progressed nearly as much without an emulator.

Nintendo RPGs really did explode in popularity thanks to emulation, huh?

 

[bigstinkie]

Hunting and grinding are so much faster with speed up. Rewind and save states can save you from a bad RNG roll.

i was going to say something like 'in my memory i do not think i have ever used a fast forward/rewind button in an rpg' but then i realised i can count on one hand the amount of times i've emulated in the past three years
for better or for worse, my consoles modded or otherwise do not have this feature
oh wait, i do remember quicksaving in circle of the moon before the final samurai shodown between nathan and dracula, so that i could quickly retry the fight when i inevitably perished
what a pain the final boss in that game was

 

[TotzOnGaming]

I remember going hard on savestates on Getsu Fuma Den on NES emu. And on games that either sent you back at the beginning upon death or just flat-out balls hard. Though mostly skill issue on my part.

 

[ThirteeTooBeets]

I try not to savestate much to get as much as an authentic experience as I can, but some older games are just inconvenient to reload or save manually.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24]

I try not to savestate much to get as much as an authentic experience as I can, but some older games are just inconvenient to reload or save manually.

This. This exact thing. It’s how I play.

But, I have to say, I went from a hater to a lover of Mario 2: The Lost Levels thanks to save states to mitigate the nonsense. Being able to learn from your mistakes and apply what you’ve learned quickly makes that game quite the fun challenge for somebody like me who loves the first game and wants more of THAT EXACT EXPERIENCE. That engine, that game design, I wanted more of that, so Lost Levels became what I always wanted thanks to being able to quickly learn and apply to stages.

 

[Taukyrie]

Honestly a lot of RPGs, especially if you have to sit through a long ass cutscene before you retry.

Like I'll admit, I used a lot of Save States during my playthrough of CCC especially early on when I was learning the basics and techniques. It's mostly because I honestly didn't want to sit through a long ass cutscene again because I failed at a game of rock, paper, scissors, rocket launcher.

 

[nobitakun]

King's Field III. The PS1 games are so damn difficult, but the first two have a glitch where you can abuse leveling to become invincible lol. Sadly, in the 3rd installment that trick is by killing enemies that are summoned by a bigger enemy that meanwhile can kick your butt if you don't care, so it's hard to accomplish.

 

[starseeker300]

Not difficult but pokemon, pkhex as been a Godsend and i dont know how i ever did without it

also pretty much any game with long periods between opportunities to save

 

[freebie#47]

Only time I use savestates was for casino games in Dragon Quest or other like games. I have beat a few hard games before, but after long long long long long time practicing and learning how to not die.

 

[Ikagura]

I try not to savestate much to get as much as an authentic experience as I can, but some older games are just inconvenient to reload or save manually.

I used to think that savestates was cheating therefore not legitimately beating the game until I'm just noticing that to be honest, playing through emulation is itself an "unauthentic experience" as I'm playing using a modern pad on a modern screen.

Authenticity is achieved if you get to have an epoch-accurate screen and using the right pad imo.

 

[bigstinkie]

forgive me for being uneducated, but what does epoch-accurate mean?
google is only confusing me further

 

[Ikagura]

forgive me for being uneducated, but what does epoch-accurate mean?
google is only confusing me further.

Era or time period if you prefer.

 

[_oBSOLEte_]

Just use savestate until you dont need them. Fake it until you make it. The frustrating part of difficult games is when you need to restart and waste time on earlier levels or parts you already learned, but finding optimal paths and learning patterns is a lot of fun.

 

[Adrastia]

View attachment 65099​

EVO: Search for Eden is straight up a better experience. This game has an alright amount of grinding, but it's dragged to the ground when the game punishes you by cutting your EXP in half each time you dies.

The bosses are pattern-based too, and trying to learn those patterns is incredibly punishing when the game takes away your EXP. The only sane way to advance without using save states is using a trick of evolving/devolving a cheap part of your body as a way to fully heal your HP on demand. Which is the counterpart of pausing an action game to eat food to heal your HP which isn't very fun to me.

My solution to this was to come up with a self-imposed challenge, where I'm allowed to use save states at the start of boss fights so I could retry them over and over at no cost, but I'm also not allowed to cheese through them by healing my HP. It became quite fun from there on out because despite the fights being pattern-based, they're quite interactive as well:

• You have to experiment with different builds and strategize with them
• Bosses flinches and gets knockback by your attacks, which can be combo-ed under specific situations. Managing to get those hits depends on your body parts and on the boss attributes as well
• Attacking bosses or changing your spacing between then affects their pattern

When in the middle of levels, I was a little more loose on save states, since those are more about grinding and getting from point A to B.

I always hated any game that punished you with exp or gold loss when you died. I think it's a cheap way to artificially up the challenge to prolong gameplay. It's not cheating to use savestates then. It's more of a QOL improvement. I will savescum any game that frustrates me so much that the fun gets taken out of it. If I wanted a genuine experience I'd play it on the original console.

 

[geckomantis]

Everyone bringing up save states but my favorite emulation feature is real time rewind. That has really changed how I play some old games and it's really fun to be able to rewind. Really great for those old games that love you give you a blind jump where they totally expect you die or miss something the first time. It's does get a bit hard to not over use it though and play the game like a TASer but that's also fun to do.

 

[ThirteeTooBeets]

Everyone bringing up save states but my favorite emulation feature is real time rewind. That has really changed how I play some old games and it's really fun to be able to rewind. Really great for those old games that love you give you a blind jump where they totally expect you die or miss something the first time. It's does get a bit hard to not over use it though and play the game like a TASer but that's also fun to do.

On the other end of the spectrum, fast forward is a life saver for certain tedious segments or grinding, and I like grinding in games I find it relaxing, but sometimes I'm not in the mood for it

 

[Don Patch]

There's SO-GODDAMN-MANY old games that are (IMO) unplayable either nowadays or as an adult without the use of savestates.
They were either unfair to begin with, jank AF, or people simply don't have the time to devote to them.
Some really fun stuff I've discovered through CDR/RGT that I'd never have given a shot had it not been for saves and emulation.

 

[Donte]

 

[Nidstang]

I was only able to beat the Rocket Knight games because of the rewind feature on the Switch collection