this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2026
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How were you meant to complete games that had no save system? (feddit.uk)
submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by smeg@feddit.uk to c/retrogaming@lemmy.world
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Most of the games I played back in the day had some way of resuming your progress at a later date, whether that was an actual save system, a password system, or even a hidden warp zone. What were you supposed to do for longer games that had no way at all of resuming your progress after switching the console off? Get good enough at the start of it that you could play the game faster and eventually complete it in one go, or just leave the console on overnight and continue the next day?

(and yes, my Mega Drive is currently sitting powered on because I couldn't think of a better way to keep my progress)

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[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 21 points 5 days ago

I used to book full afternoons to do complete runs of Super Mario Bros 3. No warp, no skip.

If I didn't have that time, the warp zone was there.

In general, games without passwords or a save system back then were not meant to be very long to complete.

Take Star Fox, a full run is like maybe an hour or so? Same for 64. The trick is that you might need several runs to be good at it, and you're supposed to find secrets, take harder routes and get better scores. And of course when those are remade or played today you've got many people complaining about how short these are.