In Emulators / NES ROMs

Just curious, how people feel about the save state. On one end it helps when regular saving isn't an option, but on the other end, sometimes I find myself using it too much. I'm bored.

I personally do consider it to be cheating. if there's a tough part leading up to a boss, and you make it though really well by pure luck once, then savestate so that you never have to do it again, that's bypassing the checkpoints and level design which are in place to set the difficulty. not really much different from using a Game Genie it make games easier.

yeah, i consider it cheating. my views on it are basically the same as Luke's

It's cheating. However, the exact extent of the cheating varies, depending on the use of save states and the game itself.

It's cheting, but I still do it sometimes anyway. Because, well. Why not? Morality be damned.

It's cheating if you use it the way NES-Luke said. However I don't think it's so bad if you just want to save a game so you can come back to it later. Some games from the NES era are insanely long and unless you have all day to play them save states really help.

But in conclusion if you are using it cancel out losing lives or anything like that it is cheating.

like that game Wario's Woods. it'll drive you crazy if you play for too long, so best to save after a while, then continute another day. so that's not really cheating.
but once you get later into the game when the boards are insane, you might do a save state in the middle of one right after you make a good move.. that way if you die, you can go back to when you were doing ok. and sure, that's cheating.
As a wise man once said, "Cheating is the gift man gives himself."

I voted yes. I think it is a mutual agreement here.

Well I didn't vote for either because I think it depends on how you use it. If you saved it because you did really well after a hard part thats cheating. But if your like me and say in Megaman for example you purposley go to a boss with only 1 line of health, save it, and then try to beat the boss over and over again then thats not cheating.

Using savestates to make a game harder? Now there's an idea :D

Cheating......

The whole point of there not being real save points in the original game is to make you better at it (through repitiion).

I dont think so, I usually save for example in Super Mario 3 after beating one world. I dont have time to play all day.

In most cases I'd consider it cheating.

The most important arguments have already been brought up, so there's nothing to add here.

There may be some cases where savestates are not cheating. E.g. when you want to practise a level and set a save at the beginning of it. Then it's ok I think.
But savestates used to overcome difficult passages in the game is clearly cheating.

Id say you could use a state if you had to go somewhere or do something important immediatley then stating would be ok to do. But other than that..not really sure if it would be cheating. Really just depends.

Like many have said before. It's all in the way it's used.

As long as it's clearly marked as tool enhanced, I think save state speed runs are fun to watch.

Even with the save states it takes a lot of time and effort to get a perfect run recorded.

Using it in a casual play through to avoid replaying difficult levels obviously makes the game a lot easier than the designer intended and could be considered cheating.

Naw, it really isn't cheating if you don't have time to play all day, and it's useful in NES Games like their version of Double Dragon which have no continue option, but if I had time to play all day I probably wouldn't use a save state.
They are also useful for the NES Games that display "initials" and "top scores" that don't have batteries or passwords (i.e. Wizards & Warriors, Bubble Bath Babes, Popeye, etc.) I'll Save State those on the title screen, just as though I was walking up to the machine in an arcade.

well in poke'mon you can save it before a really good pokemon just about the same thing as save state