Saturn and Saving

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VideoGameCritic
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Saturn and Saving

Postby VideoGameCritic » July 23rd, 2009, 7:49 pm

When it came to saving your game's progress, Sega really screwed up with the Saturn. 

With the Playstation, you could buy these nifty little memory cards that just plugged into the front.  The Saturn offered built-in storage, but it proved way to small and filled up quickly.  Worse yet, it was battery backed-up, and once your battery died, your saves went with it.  Sega would later address the issue by selling a memory cartridge, but the damage had been done.

I use an Action Replay Plus with my Saturn - mainly because it lets me play imports.  The "Plus" is a whopping 4MB of memory built into the cart for your game saves.  That's plenty of storage, but most games write to the internal memory.  What are you supposed to do, copy these over internal saves periodically to preserve your games and high scores? 

If anyone has any comments or ideas let's hear 'em.  What do you do?


cory

Saturn and Saving

Postby cory » July 23rd, 2009, 9:55 pm

Most of the games I have for Saturn give you the option of writing to memory card or internal memory as long as the cartridge is in. I actually like the Saturn cartridge more, since you buy one and you're finished. I have like 15 memory cards for the PlayStation and only one for the Saturn.

Sure, with the PlayStation you don't have to deal with transferring between internal memory and memory card, but you can only save one to three games on the thing, so you have to label them by game and find a good place for a giant stack of little memory cards. That being said, if you don't have the Saturn cartridge then it just sucks for you, because the battery system is definitely terrible.

Verm1
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Saturn and Saving

Postby Verm1 » July 24th, 2009, 8:24 am

Indeed, I think the critic is being a little one sided here.

 

The Saturn's internal memory was 512kb and free with the console. I've never had any issues with my Satun's internal memory, which continues to function to this day.

 

While the early memory cards released for the PS1 were 256kb (or 15 blocks) and you had to buy them. Though they have the bonus of being transferrable between consoles.

 

But over time, as we know, the Saturn got memory cartridges with loads of space, while the PS1 got new memory cards with loads of space.

Oltobaz1
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Saturn and Saving

Postby Oltobaz1 » July 24th, 2009, 12:20 pm

Yeah, they didn't do it right, and it wasn't the first time. The Sega CD 2 internal memory isn't great either, as it provides space for a few games, only.
I remember having to buy a memory cartridge back when I was completing Shining Force CD, as in order to access the third story, you have to complete the first two and save them...but there's not enough space to save both progress without external memory...

Anayo1
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Saturn and Saving

Postby Anayo1 » July 24th, 2009, 4:29 pm

I like the Saturn's internal memory. It's convenient to not have to buy a memory card. In a way I think it's a prelude to the progression things took with more recent consoles, which have hard drives and flash memory inside of them.

m0zart1
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Saturn and Saving

Postby m0zart1 » July 24th, 2009, 4:34 pm

[QUOTE=Anayo]I like the Saturn's internal memory. It's convenient to not have to buy a memory card. In a way I think it's a prelude to the progression things took with more recent consoles, which have hard drives and flash memory inside of them.[/QUOTE]

Not much of a progression IMO.  There were models of the CDi that had the same thing, along with the same annoyance of losing your data when the battery died.


YAGRS

Saturn and Saving

Postby YAGRS » August 20th, 2009, 5:01 pm

At least the Sega CD and the Saturn allowed the use of external memory cartridges (though they were expensive—at least I remember the Sega CD cart cost as much as a game).  It's unfortunate that systems like the TG CD, the 3DO, and the CD-i didn't allow for saves to an external source.  I always hated having to clear saves to make room for new ones.  Also, the TG CD internal memory required you to switch on your system at least once every couple of weeks to maintain your saves, so I ended up losing my saves for Ys (gives me a reason to play through again, though).



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