Board 8 > If you use rewind/save state to finish a game, did you beat it?

(+) Yeah! (+)

lordjers posted...

Castlevania: The Adventure isn't that hard and I feel attacked whenever someone says it's bad (yes I have multiple battle scars).

Once you get past that screen, you're right. The rest of the game is comparably easy.

The problem here is you getting assblasted when people tell you they disagree that using the functions to beat the game doesnt invalidate beating it
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The Adventure is one of the easiest Castlevania games of that era.

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LeonhartFour posted...

Also, when I was a kid, I was playing Michael Jordan's Chaos in the Windy City (yeah, yeah, I know), and I was messing around with the password system just for fun one time. By complete chance, I entered a password that put me at the next to last level. If I beat the game from there, does that count as "beating" the game?

imo no (but that's still pretty sweet)
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I feel like it's a warp whistle and I didn't look it up...!

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Lopen posted...

I say you didn't but your victory has more legitimacy than one who abused savestates (or used rewind at all-- I'm struggling to think of any scenarios where I think rewind is an acceptable tool to use)

Using a password to skip 99% of the game is wayyyyyyy different than using save states.

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yeah it's a gray area

I probably wouldn't count it for myself though
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I'd say it's more legitimate than using external tools to beat it, but I wouldn't feel good saying I beat the whole game. But if you do, that's great!

Again why are you asking us when it's really only up to you to decide if you beat it or not?

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wg64Z posted...

I'd say it's more legitimate than using external tools to beat it, but I wouldn't feel good saying I beat the whole game. But if you do, that's great!

Again why are you asking us when it's really only up to you to decide if you beat it or not?

Pretty sure I already answered this question multiple times!

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I did this for Battletoads because that game is true sadism.

**** Battletoads

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Also I once beat Castlevania Adventure enough times in a row that I beat it on a mode where every attack in the game could OHKO me.

It's a game that seemed a lot harder in my childhood than it actually was.

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I do agree though especially on the NES that some games were designed very unfavorably, with Ninja Gaiden being one of the poster boys for it.

Don't bring fire magic to the first of three end game bosses? You probably lose, restart all of stage 6.

Ok, so you beat him, but the next boss is virtually unbeatable the first time you face him without that magic... And we just took it from you after you cleared the first boss. Have fun restarting the stage again!

In slight fairness, you can beat boss 3 in one shot without it if you're good enough, though the same magic absolutely rips it apart too. Lose here and it's back to redoing the entire stage again.

If I recall there's a bad form of magic very close to the boss room that can cripple you (commit suicide immediately if you pick it up). Part of why the second game showed you what was in orbs before you hit them.

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ChaosTonyV4 posted...

Using a password to skip 99% of the game is wayyyyyyy different than using save states.

Let's be real it's probably 85-90% at the worst

Savestates when properly abused can effectively skip 100% of the difficulty in the game which imo is worse for "beat the game" cred than skipping, particularly since passwords will often leave the most difficult stuff unskippable since that stuff is at the end of the game.

It's all about how they're used though. Conservative use of savestates to deal with points of tedium or used as an actual save point you properly enforce game overs on is generally fine as long as you don't delude yourself and be honest with what you're doing.

Like it's easy for example to call say Ninja Gaiden's stage 6-1 through 6-3 "tedium" cause you end up having to do them repeatedly when the boss dunks you, but I'd call savestating before the boss room abuse of a savestate rather than "removing tedium" because 6-2 in particular is very difficult so it's not really "tedious" to get through it again and again but part of the difficulty.

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The reason I'd personally consider save states better than skipping outright is that even if you save state right before a particularly hard part, you're atleast still completing said challenge, even if you give yourself several tries/do it out of sequence/whatever, whereas if you skip it completely then you never did it at all.

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Not every game is meant to, nor should be, played like IWBTG though. I would consider the idea that you "completed a segment" by stripping it down into much smaller segments to be a technicality at best and an outright lie if you went really liberal with them.

Better (or functionally equal) to skip it and play what parts you didn't skip legitimately.

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I disagree with that completely.

If you save state, say, before a particularly hard boss, or before a particularly hard set of quick jumps, I'll always find it more impressive that you still beat that boss or completed those jumps, even if it took you a dozen tries, than if somebody just skipped the boss/jumps completely, since one person completed said event and the other didn't even bother.

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Like, I think a valid question along those lines would be... Do you shun speedrunners for abusing save states to practice specific sections over and over and over again instead of having to play through the entire level/game/whatever when they die? They're boosting their play in an unnatural way, by the same logic.

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Save states are absolutely a valuable way of training though, especially for boss fights that are either annoying to get to or have multiple parts. It just makes it significantly faster to achieve.

I beat MM7 without a subweapon or a death (or an E Tank but I basically don't use those ever) in particular because I spent 20-30 minutes save state training on Wily one day and increased my likelihood of dodging his attacks significantly. Of course when I booted up my SNES to do it for real I still had to GET there, but when I did, I only took 16 damage the entire fight with him in part because I trained on it. Does that make it less that I spent 20-30 minutes to learn him rather than 2-3 hours? Not really.

**** Slash Man though.

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I think there's an important distinction here, in that save states could potentially be used in good ways and not so good ways.

A good way to me would be if you're saving before a particularly tough boss, you save before it, attempt it, fail, reload the save to where you were starting that section, repeat until you get the whole run and are able to complete the whole thing in one go. More like what Meow is talking about. That's just a time saver while still gaining all the experience the game has to offer.

A more not so good way would be if you're starting as the above, but during said boss you save in the middle of that run repeatedly so that you know exactly what is coming and when right then and just immediately do that particular section of that run, over and over until you get it. In essence playing a bunch of mini-sections which are made easier by the fact that you know what's coming exactly in the next segment.

Imagine I'm playing a card game like Magic or something, something with random draws. I play against a certain type of deck best out of 3. After the first game, I know more about what cards that deck has, and what strategies it likes to do, but I don't know when it will play things. Perhaps the cards still don't go my way but I actually learned things and tried to alter my playing strategy to beat it.

Now imagine I do that but I know every card I'm going to draw in advance. I know my opening hand and my opponent's opening play, so I do something different this time. In response, their follow up play is different than what I experienced in the previous example, so I'm thrown off...but I then go back in time and do the sequence again, and I do this over and over again until I reach the best outcome.

Some types of games, I get it. Maybe like an RPG where you're just in it for the story. Such things can actually improve your enjoyment of it, especially if the gameplay is rather annoying. It keeps frustration to a minimum. But if you're playing a game to say you "completed" the challenges that the game has to offer, like said mega man game, the 2nd scenario shouldn't really give you any satisfaction if you used that method to complete it.
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HashtagSEP posted...

Like, I think a valid question along those lines would be... Do you shun speedrunners for abusing save states to practice specific sections over and over and over again instead of having to play through the entire level/game/whatever when they die? They're boosting their play in an unnatural way, by the same logic.

For practice is fine but you need to be able to do it while doing the whole run in one continuous stream at some point, not just piecemeal a playthrough by savestate spamming on every difficult segment-- that's not actually playing the game.

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I'd say which of save states or skipping is easier is determined on a case by case basis, but getting through Battletoads with warps is definitely harder than someone who went through the whole game but with save states. So yeah you beat the Turbo tunnels, but saving after every other wall? eh ok.

Something like Fire Emblem's arena comes to mind too. Someone ITT mentioned how there's basically a rewind function in them nowadays. Alright, but that ain't the case in the original, so if you use save states there you're effectively repurposing a very high risk high reward location to a comfortable grinding area.

A for the tedium thing, it's very subjective on what is considered as such and what not, and whatever the case it's still part of the game, so if you don't wanna repeat that the stakes on the actual hard part are raised.

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I'd say even save states for training is kinda cheating but that's not gonna forever ban from saying you beat it afterwards.

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I think it also depends entirely on how you are using the savestates, like Emeraldegg said.

To use Battletoads as the example, saving at the very beginning of Turbo Tunnels is definitely different than, say, saving after every wall.

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lordjers posted...

I'd say even save states for training is kinda cheating but that's not gonna forever ban from saying you beat it afterwards.

such generosity

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Lopen posted...

For practice is fine but you need to be able to do it while doing the whole run in one continuous stream at some point, not just piecemeal a playthrough by savestate spamming on every difficult segment-- that's not actually playing the game.

Well, yeah, but the argument could be that they didn't get good at those tough sections by playing the game as it's mean to be played, they got good at those tough sections by abusing savestates.

It's basically a question of where does the line ultimately get drawn?

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LeonhartFour posted...

such generosity

But it doesn't affect you so...

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it doesn't affect you either so...

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LeonhartFour posted...

it doesn't affect you either so...

Sarcastic comments do come as unwarranted.

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Also, for what it's worth, once games hit like, Genesis/SNES age and onward, checkpoints in games became much, much more common. NES/games of that era basically being "one and done" could be argued as a product of the time/lack of technical know how moreso than necessarily being entirely intentional.

That probably plays a part in why I consider using Switch savestates every now and then as checkpoints, so to speak, as not being so bad, since a lot of those games, if made later, probably would have checkpoints in them.

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lordjers posted...

Sarcastic comments do come as unwarranted.

if you do not want sarcastic comments then I would recommend not engaging in conversation with me

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LeonhartFour posted...

if you do not want sarcastic comments then I would recommend not engaging in conversation with me

Such hostility. You quoted me in the first place so I was just replying.

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I didn't consider a game complete unless I've done it without a save state at all or unless it's Battletoads tier. Like I beat TMNT1 without them and that's probably worse than all the NGs combined.

It primarily makes it much quicker to learn a game first before you go through it later, as such, for me it's mostly just a convenience tool that shaves potentially several hours off of a game that I can then put to better use.

I'll take having that five hours of my life to do other things with!

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lordjers posted...

I'd say even save states for training is kinda cheating but that's not gonna forever ban from saying you beat it afterwards.

I'm curious, what specifically is it that makes it still qualify as cheating for you? Is there something you believe about how a player might learn differently using save states vs playing the game naturally (IE playing the whole stage over and over every time they die to the boss)?
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HashtagSEP posted...

To use Battletoads as the example, saving at the very beginning of Turbo Tunnels is definitely different than, say, saving after every wall.

This is a good example because it illustrates a lot of ways to use savestates

Someone who save states at the beginning of the Turbo Tunnels is fine to me because Stage 1 and 2 are trivial and not overly long to complete. And hell if you do that and then string a continuous playthrough after that and beat the game, you're fine too.

However, if you save state at pretty much any point after the beginning of the Turbo Tunnels-- be it anywhere in the tunnels themselves or at any later stage though your run is invalid. Because Battletoads is a marathon not a sprint. It hammers you with difficulties everywhere-- you doing each individual difficult segment by banging your head on it over and over, then saving after each segment in turn, it isn't really achieving anything.

Basically if you split up any difficult string of segments in a way that the game doesn't let you do, you're abusing savestates to a point where you're no better than password skipping, to me.

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lordjers posted...

Such hostility. You quoted me in the first place so I was just replying.

There was zero hostility in that statement. It was an honest assessment.

Although it's amazing you sense hostility in my post and not in the original tweet...!

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Leonhart4 posted...

There was zero hostility in that statement. It was an honest assessment.

Although it's amazing you sense hostility in my post and not in the original tweet...!

You pretty much said "stay away from me cause I'll always reply like this", in a topic which implies discussion with others. The original tweet is harmless cause it ain't directed at no one in particular and it'd only affect at people who want validation but not on his terms, which doesn't seem to be anyone ITT.

And you've made clear what the "no" people think doesn't affect you, so there's no real point on commenting on my generosity in that tone if not for some sort of mockery.

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leon saying he's always sarcastic isn't a hostile comment

what the fuck

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Lopen posted...

This is a good example because it illustrates a lot of ways to use savestates

Someone who save states at the beginning of the Turbo Tunnels is fine to me because Stage 1 and 2 are trivial and not overly long to complete. And hell if you do that and then string a continuous playthrough after that and beat the game, you're fine too.

However, if you save state at pretty much any point after the beginning of the Turbo Tunnels-- be it anywhere in the tunnels themselves or at any later stage though your run is invalid. Because Battletoads is a marathon not a sprint. It hammers you with difficulties everywhere-- you doing each individual difficult segment by banging your head on it over and over, then saving after each segment in turn, it isn't really achieving anything.

Basically if you split up any difficult string of segments in a way that the game doesn't let you do, you're abusing savestates to a point where you're no better than password skipping, to me.

This is actually where we agree probably more than it appears.

I view savestates as a "checkpoint" system, say at the beginning of a level, or in the middle of an overly long, tedious level to be fine, because you're not really doing anything that's giving you an unfair advantage as much as just... Avoiding tedium. Saving, say, during a segment like after walls in Turbo Tunnels, or after a certain phase in a boss, etc., is something I do agree is abusing savestates in a way that kinda undermines the point.

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lordjers posted...

You pretty much said "stay away from me cause I'll always reply like this", in a topic which implies discussion with others. The original tweet is harmless cause it ain't directed at no one in particular and it'd only affect at people who want validation but not on his terms, which doesn't seem to be anyone ITT.

And you've made clear what the "no" people think doesn't affect you, so there's no real point on commenting on my generosity in that tone if not for some sort of mockery.

Spoilers that was a sarcastic way of saying I'm always sarcastic

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Emeraldegg posted...

I'm curious, what specifically is it that makes it still qualify as cheating for you? Is there something you believe about how a player might learn differently using save states vs playing the game naturally (IE playing the whole stage over and over every time they die to the boss)?

Basically this:

HashtagSEP posted...

Well, yeah, but the argument could be that they didn't get good at those tough sections by playing the game as it's mean to be played, they got good at those tough sections by abusing savestates.

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HashtagSEP posted...

That probably plays a part in why I consider using Switch savestates every now and then as checkpoints, so to speak, as not being so bad, since a lot of those games, if made later, probably would have checkpoints in them.

They weren't, though. If you're playing through a difficult game from that era part of the charm, and oftentimes why it's considered difficult to begin with, is a lack of checkpoints.

Like it's kinda like saying if Star Wars A New Hope was made with today's filmmaking standards it would be very similar to The Force Awakens and as such watching TFA is basically the same thing. But they're not the same thing at all. If you're spraying your NES games with checkpoints abound you're experiencing a different game than the actual NES game, and imo it's cheating because the Switch hasn't standardized these checkpoints whatsoever so it's a bit more complicated than just saying "I played it on the Switch"

But again there are acceptable ways out there. "Adding checkpoints" is a bit beyond where I'd be okay with though on its face. I'd ask for elaboration on where they were, how frequent, etc.

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Lopen posted...

They weren't, though. If you're playing through a difficult game from that era part of the charm, and oftentimes why it's considered difficult to begin with, is a lack of checkpoints.

Well, I also feel there's a difference between a game that's difficult because it was designed to be difficult, and a game that's "difficult" only because it's unforgiving because checkpoints just weren't really a thing back then.

Like, games like Battletoads and Ninja Gaiden are obviously designed to be difficult. But there are plenty of games where you start over a long, tedious, so easy it hurts stage because your jump button stuck, and you can just tell they weren't intentionally designed that way on purpose as much as just... That's how games were at the time.

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lordjers posted...

The original tweet is harmless cause it ain't directed at no one in particular

this is such weird reasoning.

if i say "black people suck," my statement is not non-hostile because i'm not directing at any particular black person.

the weirdest thing about this topic is all the people going "oh no matei's tweet was not aggressive or hostile in the slightest it's unfathomable that people interpret it as such!!" you'd have to be completely tone-deaf if you don't understand why people think the tweet was hostile.

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HashtagSEP posted...

Well, I also feel there's a difference between a game that's difficult because it was designed to be difficult, and a game that's "difficult" only because it's unforgiving because checkpoints just weren't really a thing back then.

Like, games like Battletoads and Ninja Gaiden are obviously designed to be difficult.

That's true, and goes back to the "I'm not even going to ask for games that aren't difficult so it's never going to come up" deal.

Like you can go ahead and savestate all you want on a Super Mario Bros 3 or a Mega Man 4 because I'm just not going to even ask if you did to begin with

A Mike Tyson's Punch Out or a Ninja Gaiden or Double Dragon though you bet I am

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Lopen posted...

That's true, and goes back to the "I'm not even going to ask for games that aren't difficult so it's never going to come up" deal.

Like you can go ahead and savestate all you want on a Super Mario Bros 3 or a Mega Man 4 because I'm just not going to even ask if you did to begin with

A Mike Tyson's Punch Out or a Ninja Gaiden or Double Dragon though you bet I am

That's fair enough, because yeah, I can't imagine using savestates in Punch-Out, for instance, other than to try to cheat. Ninja Gaiden I think I'd stick to the "At the beginning of a level" idea, but beyond that... Eh.

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Mr Lasastryke posted...

if i say "black people suck," my statement is not non-hostile because i'm not directing at any particular black person.

True, but that's not at all similar to what the statement says.

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no. it's an analogy to illustrate that your logic makes no sense.

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Mr Lasastryke posted...

no. it's an analogy to illustrate that your logic makes no sense.

Well it's a bad analogy then if that was the intention.

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Bad analogies are what b8 does

Especially when they can shoehorn racist overtones in for bonus points

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If you cheer for a team that isn't within a 100 mile radius of you then you are by no means a real sports fan

@ExThaNemesis more like FakeThaNemesis

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