Battery Back-Up vs. Codes.

[Aswald]

As of right now, I have several RPGs:

Lord of the Dungeon (ColecoVision).

Wizardry (NES).

Dragon Warrior (NES).

Swords and Serpents (NES).

Towers: Lord Baniff's Deceit (GBC).


Of them all, LOTD still ranks as my overall favorite. Wizardry is good, too.


Of them all, Swords and Serpents is unique in that you input a complex code to pick up (more or less) where you left off. It is very tricky to do at times, since some letters/numbers look similar to one another, but this would be easy to fix, obviously.

Which do YOU prefer? I would imagine that battery back-up has the advantages of knowing EXACTLY where you left off, and is much more convenient, while code-entry cannot ever be lost (dead battery, messed-up RAM, etc.), and any number of people can play one cartridge- in fact, as long as you have the codes written down, you don't even need the same cartridge!

[grolt]

I'll stand by the battery. I've never had a problem losing data with a cart-based battery (trusting the battery on my Saturn or Sega CD is another story), and I've never run into a case where I just had to play MIRACLE WARRIORS for the SMS at a friends house and couldn't simply input a password.

I like the idea that even if I go back to the games I played ten years ago, my progress will still be saved where it originally was. Even if it would be the same as inputting a password, I just like entertaining the idea that my save is unique and not just some precoded point of entry.

Plus, those passwords are always stupid long. I'm sure a 5 digit code would have really sufficed without anyone cracking it. And plus, it's not like it's top secret documentation anyway!

[Snapple]

I thought everyone hated passwords. I'm more likely to lose a code I've written down than have my game magically erased.

[exit]

I hate the stupid long passwords (i.e. MetalGear), but I don't mind the ones that use symbols, or a chart (i.e. Castlvania 4, Megaman 2+), sometimes passwords don't work even if you write them down perfectly.

I like the battery backup, but mainly on SNES and Genesis, the ones on NES tend to never work for me.

[Single Player Gamer]

I'll cast my vote for battery backup. Considering there are NES cartd that have been around for 20 years and the battery saves are still there, that seems the way to go. I cant imagine keeping a scrap of paper with a code scribbled on it for 20 years.

[Yakumo]

It's got to be battery for me as well. Passwords sometimes don't work even though you checked 3 or so times that you have written it correctly. The only thing with a battery save is the horror of the battery losing power with you save then banished to the heavens of lost data :(

Yakumo

[geneshifter]

The only thing with a battery save is the horror of the battery losing power with you save then banished to the heavens of lost data :(

That's the problem I just had with my Saturn, lol.

[BydoEmpire]

I thought everyone hated passwords. I'm more likely to lose a code I've written down than have my game magically erased.Same here. Codes did what they needed to do, but battery back up is much better.

[FantasiaWHT]

1= l, 0 = O, S = 5, please give me battery backups :)

[Aswald]

The comment about "S=5" does point out a problem.

But for many games, how hard can it be, assuming you don't care about cheating?

Take Wizardry, or LOTD- a dungeon level is a maze. The game knows what it looks like.

So, input level. Input the two numbers that mark your coordinates.

There- you are there.

All right, you have to input your names again, and stats, and items...a real hassle, but even if it takes 10 minutes, usually people who play these games have a few hours set aside. Since, in LOTD, you can only carry 2 extra items/character anyway, no big deal, and each normal item would have a couple of numbers for it- a sword would be "2," a +2 sword 2,2. A sword of DIRFLACOG would be 2,7. And so on.

Hell, the instruction booklet can even list these things, so if you copy the code down wrong, you just have to look it up.

As it is in Swords and Serpents, though, there were times I swore I copied it down correctly, but it didn't work.

[Barbarianoutkast85]

I voted for the battery back up. Becuase in a little more than a decade I've only lost a handful of saves due to battery back up. They were DKC 3, and SMW for the SNES. What's even weirder is that it happened when the titles were relativly new. I havent lost game info due to battery failure in a long time now.

[Aswald]

This sort of thing has brought up an interesting problem: many batteries sold are clearly nearly dead.

I've put in spare batteries in LOTD, only to lose everything in a matter of weeks. Upon taking apart the cartridge (again) and testing the battery- it was dead. So it appears to be chance.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

While I prefer battery backed saves to passwords, the ubiquity of battery or flash backup on modern systems has led to one of my most hated aspects of video games today: the unlockable. I simply despise the fact that *NO ONE* releases a game anymore that you can just play straight out of the box. Instead, every game, no matter how arcade-oriented makes you play through to unlock the rest of the content. I just want to be able pick the cars or tracks or characters that I want to use, I don't want to play with a substandard car or track or character first in order to unlock the the better ones. This is the thinnest sort of way to create replay value that I can imagine.

So yeah, battery or flash memory back up is great when the game actually needs to save something, but I wish developers would realize that not all game *NEED* saving at all and not shoe-horn all this unlockable content into games that don't warrant it.


...word is bondage...

[Jimid2]

As a long time TurboGrafx fan, I've got to tell you, I HATE CODES! They're a pain, and they're just about impossible to enter correctly on a TurboExpress... Give me battery backup any day...

[bangtango]

Depends on the game.

If I am playing something like Madden or World Series Baseball, with extensive stat tracking, then I prefer a battery back-up.

If I am playing something like Goonies II, River City Ransom, Metal Gear, Mega Man II, Castlevania II or even Faxanadu, then a password is just fine.

For one, you are going to "resume a game" far more often in a sports game with season/franchise mode than you will in games like Mega Man II or River City Ransom, both of which you could reasonably beat in one sitting anyway. Even a game like Metal Gear or Faxanadu can be beat in 2-3 sittings, meaning that you will only ever need to log/enter a password a couple of times perhaps (give or take).

Something worth noting is that a Pokemon or Dragon Warrior cart game becomes completely useless if it has a dead battery (unless you change the battery or are an Ebay reseller). Something like NHL 95 or Madden 95 that gets a dead battery is still serviceable, in that you can still play exhibition or one game playoff contests against the computer or another player.

If ever a game should have had battery back up or a password mode, it would have been Mario 3 on NES. Yes, I know the All Star versions corrected that but I first played it on the NES. I never respected the idea of beating Mario 3 using warps/whistles or otherwise skipping levels but it took a solid afternoon or evening to play through it from start to finish in one sitting if you wanted to complete every single level in the game.

[Barbarianoutkast85]

It looks like without a doubht Back up Batteries are taking the cake against codes.

[alec006]

Batterys,also what about ROM Memory chips that dont need a battery at all,yea codes can get annoying most of the time,especialy in NES games like Roger Rabbit.

[RPG_Fanatic]

It's got to be battery for me as well. Passwords sometimes don't work even though you checked 3 or so times that you have written it correctly. The only thing with a battery save is the horror of the battery losing power with you save then banished to the heavens of lost data :(

Yakumo

Hell yeah!!!! that happened to me so many times back in the day playing Kid Icarus.

[cyberfluxor]

Battery backup for the wins. There are only a few games I've played where a code is better than a battery save, just can't think of one right now but I know they're out there! (some adventure game I'm sure)

[ALAKA]

emulator save states trumps both options.

[Aswald]

Is it true that Quest For Quintana Roo was one of the first console games with "code entry?" Even if it just lets you skip to Level 2 or Level 3?

By the way, what was with that final code?

[j_factor]

I prefer codes for a lot of games. I like how in, say, Road Rash, I can just keep copying down codes, and if something goes sour (like I lose all my money or buy a bike that turns out to suck), I can go back to the way it was before. In a game where nothing actually needs to be saved, I prefer level select codes to a battery save. That way, with successive plays I can just skip ahead or whatever.

[Blitzwing256]

The comment about "S=5" does point out a problem.

But for many games, how hard can it be, assuming you don't care about cheating?

Take Wizardry, or LOTD- a dungeon level is a maze. The game knows what it looks like.

So, input level. Input the two numbers that mark your coordinates.

There- you are there.

All right, you have to input your names again, and stats, and items...a real hassle, but even if it takes 10 minutes, usually people who play these games have a few hours set aside. Since, in LOTD, you can only carry 2 extra items/character anyway, no big deal, and each normal item would have a couple of numbers for it- a sword would be "2," a +2 sword 2,2. A sword of DIRFLACOG would be 2,7. And so on.

Hell, the instruction booklet can even list these things, so if you copy the code down wrong, you just have to look it up.

As it is in Swords and Serpents, though, there were times I swore I copied it down correctly, but it didn't work.

it wasn't your writing skills, swords and serpents has password system gltiches where it WILL give you codes that plain don't work, I managed to beat the game on an emulator, wrote down my passwords and tried them on the cart, didn't work, evne though I still have the password on the screen in the emu so I copied it exact, and it just plain didn't work.

gauntlet has the same issue, if you get more then 2k in your score any password you get from that point won't work
the manual explained it that you are too greedy if you get 2k treasures ;-)

[Rob2600]

If ever a game should have had battery back up or a password mode, it would have been Mario 3 on NES.

I've always thought the exact same thing. It's one of my least favorite Super Mario games for that reason alone. Had Nintendo allowed me to save my progress, it would have made all the difference.