I'm just wondering what you think of the save system seen in games such as Crystal Project and Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

The way it works is as follows:
* You can save the game anywhere.
* However, while your stats are saved, your position is not. Instead, you'll start back at some designated point.
* Crystal Project has what are essentially "save points". You set one as your home point (don't remember if that was the term), and that would be where you are sent when you reload.

So, what do you think of this style of save system in general?

Eh, not the worst if the game hands you a warp system or some kind of expedited travel system.

What if the game world is linear or small enough to not need such a system? (In the case of the linear game world, the game would send you to the most recent town or other safe ares when you load a save.)

(By the way, Crystal Project isn't linear, but it does have a fast travel system. Unfortunately, it's a bit before you get access to it; however, there's the "multiple home points" assist mode setting that allows you to set 3 of them, and there's an item the game gives you early that lets you warp between them.)

I haven't played Crystal Project, so I can only make a guess for that design choice. Perhaps the devs wanted to allow the player the convenience of saving anytime while preventing them from accidently getting into situations they can't get out of or make the abuse of save/reload tactics less convenient.

Anyways, it seems to be alright save system. Actually, I don't mind save points as long they are not spaced too far apart.

Frustrating and a major negative aspect for the game in my view, just like any system that isn't, well, proper saving, full state and detail, but less so than fixed points only, and not a dealbreaker, as perma* / only autosave / single save would be.

uhh are those controller games?

Blasphemy!!!! Burn the Heretic!!!!

or is this uncalled for?

in that case for those embedded with such an opinion, I apoligize

Then it'd have the same problem I had with Book of Eschalon's fast travel system, where I wonder why the developer challenged the player to not use it, in spite of the game being linear and small.

Its fine and honestly a really good system in some cases imo, especially for RPGs. Being able to save anywhere is mostly good for games where you are constantly progressing in someway (gaining XP from battles, items and treasure from found chests in rogue-likes, etc.). While there are some annoyances compared to saying at the exact location and restarting from there, saving and returning to a specific save point actually has many benefits.

1) No softlock
This is the obvious application for this, the alternative being the player is just unable to save so any progress made is lost.
There are some situations where the player will be put in an unwinnable situation if they planned poorly and a save wont save them. This can range from going into a location unprepared against a very strong dungeon of enemies or even a boss with no way to leave or grind to strengthen their characters to take down that boss. This situation happens alot in RPGs, a recent one being Like a Dragon chapter 12 where there is a huge difficulty spike (those who played this game know what Im talking about). If you could save anywhere and saved before that boss with a party that was too injured or otherwise unprepared to take down the boss; you essentially softlocked yourself and need to reload an earlier save or even restart. Like a Dragon avoids this by removing any save points in the dungeon but this could also be avoided with a save system, like this.

2) Essentially a free quick travel
Quick travel is now a standard in games but can be cheap. Games get around this by limiting where quick travel can be used, one of which being preventing players from quick travelling while within dungeons. This save point system essentially provides a quick travel system from anywhere in the game with the "penalty" being going to a specific safe zone. After beating a dungeon, players can essentially save and quick travel out of the dungeon at worst or can even avoid a party KO if their party is significantly weakened following the boss fight and fighting through enemies in the dungeon to leave is too risky. Could be considered an exploit but that is a benefit of this system.

3) Encourages exploration
Finally, since this system prevents any softlocking, you can also argue that this save point system encourages exploration. Players can choose to pursue a more trecherous path earlier and see how far they can travel without having to retreat because they can essentially save and return back to a safe house vs saving and having to trek back with their injured characters. You can be more daring and feel free to explore since the save system provides a get out of danger card in a sense.

This does prevent certain types of softlocks, including one type you don't mention: If, due to a glitch, you end up out-of-bounds and are unable to get back in bounds, then you can fix it by saving and reloading.

On the other hand, there are other types of softlocks it doesn't prevent, such as:
* Scripting bugs, where an important event can no longer trigger
* Killing an important NPC that you aren't supposed to (this is the sort of bug that happens in many WRPGs but simply doesn't happen in JRPGs or older RPGs that don't persist data about every single NPC)
* Not having enough money for a mandatory expenditure and not being able to get more (interestingly, Pokemon Yellow and Paladin's Quest both have special cases to deal with that; in Pokemon Yellow, for example, if you can't afford the Safari Zone, you are still allowed, but with fewer Safari Balls, but still the full time limit)
* If even basic attacks have a cost, being completely out of them. Similarly, in games where you need weapons to fight, if you get rid of your weapons and are unable to afford more, you could get stuck. (Something like Star Command's bankruptcy option would be needed to solve this case.) Note that there are some games where this sort of softlock is something a player would have to do on purpose. You forgot another aspect of this: It encourages attempting to fight battles that would be quite difficult or impossible, because the stakes are lower. It also helps to guard against extremely bad random results (for example, if an enemy casts a death spell on your party and every single party member fails their saving throw; unlikely, but it can happen). In particular, allowing something like this does allow the developer to include more dangerous encounters without it being too punishing for the player. Crystal Project outright gives you an item that allows quick travel to the currently set home point, so you don't have to reload in that case.

Yeah, this system wont prevent all softlocks but I was thinking of distinct advantages compared to the save progress anywhere and starting up right where you are which alot of players seem to love, even in this very thread. I was just thinking of situations where instantly saving can softlock you whereas this system can prevent that.

I do feel that the examples you gave were mostly bugs/glitches or players purposefully screwing over themselves rather than softlocks that result from playing naturally though. You dont want to kill quest givers or any random NPC due to the risk that you can bar yourself from quests or content as a result. Yeah, you can also set harder encounters and more challenges because the player has the ability to grind and better prepare for the encounter. The simplest version of this is just dont allow saving in a dungeon (with save points right before entering) which is common in JRPGs although that does result in annoyances like losing a ton of progress or even having to restart the entire dungeon again because you got a really unlucky party wipeout.

I would also say the ability to save your status/equipment earned by saving is also an easy way to grind and get stronger faster as well. Players can go to a difficult area, use their powerful abilities to explore and collect powerful equipment, then save and return back to the safe haven which makes followup explorations much more doable. This can be considered cheating/exploiting but still a benefit. Yeah but its still a free and early game quick travel lol. Speedrunners abuse this during Zelda runs as well I think. It is a more niche application that you can consider cheap or cheating as well but it is still a benefit, especially in older games where quick travel wasnt as prevalent.

Subpar. I'd find it mildly annoying, if you can return to the spot where you saved the game in no time, but possibly a no-go if returning there involved lots of backtracking and repetition of things you've done before. As always I'd have to judge on a case to case basis, but I can easily imagine cases that would cause me to drop the whole game, because I'd consider this system too bothersome to deal with and it would ruin my fun.

Any save system that doesn't allow full state saving at any time is an abomination and needs to die in a fire! And anyone who implements such crippled save systems without a technological reason is a bad person and should feel bad!

quite pointless. when i save a game it is because i want to stop there and continue from there again later. this is just a checkpoint system,

Nothing unusal. Titan Quest for example does that with the resurrection fountains. You can save at any time but will resume at the last activated resurrection fountain.

Seen it in several other games, but can't really remember right now. Overall, it depends. In the mentioned Titan Quest, it's fine and even better than something like Diablo 2 (not 1 though). But in other game genres, it could potentially be annoying.