In honour of the upcoming Save Points event, I was wondering what everyone’s favourite save points are. While they’ve been integrated more seamlessly into the world design in recent years, when games were getting their footing save points were often abstract otherworldly portals you’d find glimmering across the world.
I see Final Fantasy 7’s dixie-cup-vaporwave save point as being a pivotal point in save point history.
Which of these video game relics are you fave saves?
Evil save points? I’ve literally never heard of that, but that’s just cruel.
Call me old fashioned, but one of my favorite save points is a classic bed in the latter GTA games. After my character’s been up for like 62 hours straight committing widespread crime and chaos, it’s just nice to come home and chill in a presumably hard uncomfortable bed, ya know?
I liked ICO’s approach to save points. Something about sitting on a couch (though one that looks pretty uncomfortable) to rest and save your game fit within that world and its character.
On the inverse of that, I never felt good about stopping to save my game in Alien: Isolation and I kinda loved that about it. Especially how it’d indicate that enemies were nearby, to make you even more anxious.
Resident Evil is one of the few examples of limiting the amount of saves you could make by only allowing a save when you found a typewriter AND had a ribbon.
Dead Space 2 actually has a callback to to this, there is a mode where you can only save a limited amount of times, super hard, never finished that one.
I like that functionality in JRPGs because not only are you allowed to use tents while in the aura, but it also reminds you to put your affairs in order before you save so that it’s easier to start back up. Maybe you need to heal a bit, junction some new magic, swap some materia around your party, equip some new espers or relics, etc, so when you load your save you’re ready to go.
