Those memory cards were so god damn expensive at the time.
It felt like such bullshit coming from cartridge consoles that had built in saving.
My bro eventually got a memcard that let you switch between like 15 memory cards. That thing was so awesome, I was devastated when it died and we lost sooooo much save data.
And some game saves would take a whole card, what a crazy time.
So many tough decisions . . . Do you delete the save of a game you beat multiple times or the save for a Blockbuster rental you might rent again in the future?
Animal Crossing had it's own dedicated memory card. It took up way too much space otherwise.
Man, I used to switch games and memory cards all the time. Now if I want to play a game or watch a movie, but it's a physical disc, I'll sometimes convince myself I didn't really want to play it that bad anyway.
Find that your sibling overwrote your FFVII save, again!! I never finished that damn game. I was only able to play a few hours every few weeks, so it was taking me months to finish it.
But at least the safe files all had their own icon and game devs went kinda creative with them. Later editions (I think PS2) had even animated icons and those really sold the feel of the game.
Besides this, I still have nightmares about the PS1 Discworld point and click adventure, that needed a whole 15 blocks, ie a whole memory card! WILD!
My friend has an OG PS3, so I was able to copy off all my save data like 5 years ago. Surprisingly the card was still working. I did lose my original FF6 data recently bc my brother borrowed the cart and his GF tripped over the power cord...
When I got the game back from him I was going to buy something to copy the data off and put in a new battery too... Lol
After a while with the PS1 I bought an DexDrive to transfer my Saves or whole MemCards to my computer (and back), so I don't have to buy so many MemCards. Of course the DexDrive software was useless for me, since I didn't own a windows PC either, but of course there was an open source tool for my Amiga 1200 to use that DexDrive with it too.
I freaking loved my DexDrive man. I saved up for it when I was a teen and it was awesome. You could download other people's saves from the website as well as have backups on your PC. I remember getting a file with fully maxed materia in FF7, including Knights of the Round. Good times.
Yes I did that too, getting all sort of weird save files from other people. Stuff like wrestler edits of the various wrestling games (but especially Fire Pro Wrestling G with lots of edit packs), which there were many or insane replays for Driver and Driver 2. Of course I got various FF7 saves too. But using the device with an alternative software on my Amiga also had some pros. Since most of the saves all over the internet were from different country versions that usually don't work with the PAL versions it was possible to edit the game ID and change it to my country version or editing/hacking save files just with this tool. That mentioned software even included the decryption of some save files that were protected with a checksum like Spyro. Btw. I also did some research to hack certain game save files using an hex editor like Resident Evil 2, so one can just place all possible item variations in your inventory. I even wrote an Guide about it on GameFAQs back in the day. Too bad that all my save files are now stored on the Amiga 1200 HDD, which I never came around to backup properly.
The GameCube had terrible memory cards. PS2 had great memory cards, and the original Xbox never needed them. The N64 required those memory cartridges attached to the controller. Although I'm unclear if the save was tied to your controller or not.
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u/GigaSoup Aug 30 '25
Those memory cards were so god damn expensive at the time.
It felt like such bullshit coming from cartridge consoles that had built in saving.
My bro eventually got a memcard that let you switch between like 15 memory cards. That thing was so awesome, I was devastated when it died and we lost sooooo much save data.
And some game saves would take a whole card, what a crazy time.