Shouldn't It Be About Time For Pokemon To Get Multiple Extra Save Slots

Spinosaurus

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    Is there any reason why not?

    With every new generation Pokemon's been really falling behind other RPGs with its archaic design. I have several, if not, a lot of issues I have with the franchise at this point, but nothing grinds my gear than the lack of extra save files. For a game like Pokemon, it's absolutely idiotic and anti-consumer. There's multiple issues with this, and my biggest problem with it being that I can't start a new playthrough without having to lose my old Pokemon. (I also have a young brother that I have to buy another copy for, so that's pretty fun.)

    Pokemon is the only modern RPG franchise I can think of that has this. Why hasn't this been implemented years ago? I can't think of any real reason than it being a cheap business ploy to get more money out of this. Why should I buy another copy for just another playthrough without losing all my hard work or go through the hassle of trading which isn't exactly intuitive? (Forget needing another copy and a system.)
     
    It's not even relative to just other RPGs, just about all modern games have more than one save file really except for Pokemon. I can't think of a single non-Pokemon game made in the past 10 years that doesn't have at least more than one save file.


    I kind of doubt it's a money ploy really. Pokemon's one of the top 5 or so most lucrative video games franchises in the world so I doubt they do it because they're hungry for more cash. Part of me wonders if perhaps they're just rather unwilling or afraid to change anything about the design of the games that it extends to things like lack of multiple save files, though at the same time they have kept up with modern features like having online game modes and such.

    Bank alleviates the issue somewhat though, since you can store boxes upon boxes of Pokemon fairly quickly in it and then place them back into your game as soon as you start over, all for $5 a year and no additional systems required, though I still find it immensely irritating that we can't transfer items in addition to Pokemon.

    ......so yeah I don't get why they don't do it either, there's really no reason for them not to.
     
    Maybe they do that because there's simply not enough room for more than one save file? Each save file has to keep track of player location, party Pokemon, box Pokemon, inventory, held items, badges, and any flags the player has activated while playing the game, and since there's a little over 700 Pokemon total that can be a lot of space. But of course these days it would be possible to have more than one save file even taking that into account, given the sheer amount of unused space in the ROM...
     
    Maybe they do that because there's simply not enough room for more than one save file? Each save file has to keep track of player location, party Pokemon, box Pokemon, inventory, held items, badges, and any flags the player has activated while playing the game, and since there's a little over 700 Pokemon total that can be a lot of space. But of course these days it would be possible to have more than one save file even taking that into account, given the sheer amount of unused space in the ROM...

    Maybe it's because the game couldn't handle two save files being loaded at once?
     
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    Pure speculation on my part, but if I had to guess I'd say it's a combination of traditionalism and money. Supporting additional save files would be more technically expensive (more development, more cartridge space, etc.), and the end result would simply be less people buying a second copy in order to do another playthrough (i.e. less money for GameFreak). Long story short, I don't think they're likely to do more work for less money :c
     
    Because this is a game of interaction. Other RPGs are STRICTLY single-player. Where you play a story mode (like Fire Emblem) and then when the story is over, you're done. Finished.

    In Pokemon, when you finish story mode, you still have the option to trade away your members for other Pokemon or battle online. You can't turn on Fire Emblem and trade away your Lucina for a Donnel. You can't use your unit to battle with other people's units online. Because there isn't any interaction in traditional RPGs, you can get by with separate save files. With Pokemon however, how will it be any more convenient to trade with other people or battle with other people if you have to continuously exit out of your file 1 to go to file 2 just to get out a Pokemon you need to trade? What if you get a Pokemon you finally wanted in file 3 but you really needed that Pokemon for your file 1 team? How would you be able to transfer that data from within your cartridge? Maybe with PokeBank? That seems more tedious than just having every Pokemon you need in 1 cartridge.
     
    Social aspect and identity.

    One person, one game.

    Unless you're rolling with money and can buy multiple systems and/or game copies to trade and interact with yourself for the sake of completion... you go out to trade, battle, etc.

    The franchise is built around being social. The in-game trainer represents you. The Pokemon you picked out, trained, etc. are the products of your decisions and efforts. The more save files that exist, the more they dilute your identity. Obviously not everyone operates the same way, but from the game development side, the fantasy provided by the game and the world(s) it builds usually plays a massive role in the big picture.

    Having the ability to create multiple save files will not make development any more expensive. Each save file is negligible in size. There are massive full 3D RPGs with full cutscenes and everything that can support up to 100 or more individual save files. Nintendo fully intended to stick to a single save file. I guarantee you the discussion for this came up multiple times in the past, or still continue to this day, at board meetings and conference calls.

    As for recycling data between games, it's called an item sink. Different Pokemon, items, etc. are not meant to be an "infinite resource," though they technically can be if you decide to make it happen. However, it's generally problematic, especially when such resources can be shared globally. It takes away the incentive for the player to play the game, think of what they really want to do, track down the same items, etc. It becomes a mindless motion; you're just doing it strictly from an efficiency standpoint. As a result, simple measures to prevent players from recycling the same items are common, especially in online RPGs, which Pokemon really falls under now.
     
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    Main series programming is rather limited on how much it can do, just imagine to calibrate all those save data info into a multiple file would make unused RAM inside the cartridge becoming more strains because of more than 1 save. Another theory is just having more than 1 save would ruin GF profit because people won't bother interact with other players online or locally and just making the game too much RPG-ish than the pokemon game we know.
     
    The time at which the main series games become RPGs is the same time Minecraft gets an actual story mode and not just some episodic QTE infested Telltale bs {XD}

    Would they be capable to give us a main series game that allows for multiple save files? Considering how technology advanced and the fact that a lot of really big games on the 3DS (like the port of Xenoblade Chronicles) allow for multiple save files, that should make it obvious that Pokemon as well could easily handle multiple savegames. So the techincal capability isn't what's holding them back.

    Then is it because of tradition? I don't think so, as GF likes to reinvent features all the time. We got breeding, battle facilities, the transition from open world to story reliant gameflow, physical/special split, new types, the transition from 2D to 3D (and a complete overhaul to the battle system), Mega evolution and different forms of certain Pokemon, etc.

    Fact is: not the technicalities or tradition cause Pokemon to only support one save file. Someone at GF made the decision that there's only one save file, but obviously, in order to make such a decision, you also need to give reasons for it. In general, if you want to create a game that people like, every decision that was made during the creation process had to have good reasons.

    Having only one save file available leaves you at an important choice: do you want to restart your game, or do you want to keep your old one, which has all your old Pokemon? That decision puts a lot more value to your Pokemon, as you can't just cheap your way out by escaping to a different save file. If you want to replay the game, you have to say bye to your old friends.
    The fact that you can make use of the trading feature also helps solving that problem, as it allows you to save whatever you want to keep, while also partaking in social interactions (which has always been one of the main selling points of the series).

    It sure is intriguing how GF made this whole friendship stuff so centric as a theme, that even saving is incorporated into the concept. It's almost as if they were actually trying to use Game Design strategies. :P
     
    VisualJae sums this up perfectly. Pokemon is built as a "social" franchise where you connect with others to trade and battle, and having multiple save files sorta lessens your unique identity. Also, as Mew said we also have to consider all the data in the games for stuff like Pokemon, items, and so much more.
     
    Has everyone forgotten that during the development of the first game, Game Freak was deciding whether to include an extra save file or the ability to nickname your Pokemon, since they couldn't have both due to cartridge limitations? They went with the latter of course.
     
    Pinkie-Dawn said:
    Has everyone forgotten that during the development of the first game, Game Freak was deciding whether to include an extra save file or the ability to nickname your Pokemon, since they couldn't have both due to cartridge limitations? They went with the latter of course.
    Click to expand...
    Sure, that's why they did it back then and it's understandable, but why continue to not have multiple save files nowadays? They aren't strapped for memory space on the 3DS cartridges or anything.
     
    When someone asks how cool would it be to have multiple save files in Pokémon games, my answer always amounts to: be careful what you wish for, and here's why... this is why:

    mew_nani said:
    Maybe they do that because there's simply not enough room for more than one save file? Each save file has to keep track of player location, party Pokemon, box Pokemon, inventory, held items, badges, and any flags the player has activated while playing the game, and since there's a little over 700 Pokemon total that can be a lot of space.
    Click to expand...

    This. You can't have multiple save files per say in a 3DS game, you can have one save file that acts as many. For instance, TLOZ a Link Between Worlds technically also has only one save file, but the game is coded in a way that it can pretend there are three save files instead of just one. I mean, try starting multiple save files in a NES/SNES/GBA/DS Zelda game using an emulator, you'll only get one .sav file, and it is not emulator-specific quirks: unless the emulator you use is really poorly coded, .sav files can be created using one emulator and opened in another. So, there's reason to believe that, yes, this is how cartridge-based games actually behave. You will also probably notice that the size of the .sav doesn't change, no matter if you just started playing, or are getting to the end of the game. The space where a game can write save data is limited.

    There's no reason to think 3DS games are any different. A cartridge-based 3DS game saves to the actual cartridge, not to the console (unlike home consoles these days) , which you can see if you use your cartridges on different 3DS systems. The writeable memory on a cartridge obviously has a cap, like any flash drive has. It also appears logical that digitally downloaded games would be made to have the same cap: first of all, it wouldn't make sense to make copies of the game that cost nothing to produce better than the ones that require using all that plastic, paper etc, and second, it would prevent one single game from using more and more space and slowly overtaking the entire SD card.

    So, yes, 3DS game saves are capped in size.

    I remember reading somewhere that the main reason Gen I games only had one save file was the nicknaming feature, which basically adds 10 bytes to the data structure of every Pokémon, which was huge back in the GB/GBC days. Even if the available space has been greatly expanded compared to fifteen years ago, the data structure used for representing a Pokémon has similarly bloated in size. And there are a lot of boxes now! 31 and a battle box, that's a lot to save.

    Let's say you want three save files instead of one. If the dev sacrifices one Pokémon box to make room to save the inventory, event flags and so on in two extra files, that leaves each save slot with only ten boxes. Whether multiple save files are a good thing depends on whether you are willing to make this sacrifice. I am not.

    The only part of the above post I disagree with is:
    mew_nani said:
    But of course these days it would be possible to have more than one save file even taking that into account, given the sheer amount of unused space in the ROM...
    Click to expand...
    Read-only memory and writeable memory are two completely different things.
     
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    I have to think that they only do it as a money grab. I really think they could find a way to fit more save files in the game, they'd just rather people pay for the bank (which is cheap, but still) and buy other games to do multiple playthroughs.
     
    I think having more than one save file would be kind of neat. For me personally I would like it, however I can't see this idea realistically coming into fruition anytime soon.

    It would either be due to hardware/software limitations or simply GameFreak not wanting the feature for "artistic reasons." I still don't think it will actually happen at the moment.

    Although if it somehow did, I wouldn't complain about it.
     
    Achromatic said:
    Whilst I don't think they're going to do it, I would love to see this happen. I really want to play X again right now but don't want to reset. Sad. :(
    Click to expand...

    Yeah I'm afraid it's buying another copy for you.

    But I think Akame is right about the likely reason that Pokemon still has only one save, it is likely limitations on the cartridge itself rather than "tradition" if you ask me. Wicked also mentioned it could make players get convinced into buying another copy and therefore Game Freak gets money from sales, especially given how strong Pokemon games sell.
     
    While I agree when it comes to items, Pokémon themselves are quite considerable chunks of data, there's a lot in there, including things that you don't usually think about (contest stats, home location, secret trainer ID, various checksums etc) . But, more importantly, with 31 boxes, there's a lot of such chunks of data to save, to say the least. Never underestimate that.

    Again, think about the number of save slots you want. Then divide 31 (the number of boxes in X/Y/OR/AS) by that number and round that to the lower integer. That's the number of boxes you'll get in every save slot.

    A lot of other games, such as TLOZ A Link Between Worlds for instance, have nowhere as much stuff to save as Pokémon games do.
     
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