I happen to be one of those people who use savestates when playing on an emulator. I abused that user friendly save-anywhere feature to the fullest extent I could take it.

But by doing so, am I cheating?

I owned a copy of Vegas Stakes for Gameboy and as soon as I made it to the High Roller’s table I exploited the one trick practically everyone knows: Reloading. I’d bet everything on a blackjack hand and if I lost I’d reload the last save and do it again. Within a few minutes my 100,000 turned into 10 million, winning the game. Exploiting the reload has been undeniably common since the battery backup. The savestate function just makes it that much more easier to execute.

If the feature is there within the game environment it’s there to be used, for example the screen warp glitch in Link’s Awakening or the duplication trick in FFVII, Oblivion, or Pokemon. I can’t imagine anyone not using them (unless they have a perchance for  masochism). The glitch in the designer’s eye becomes a tool in the player’s arsenal. Exploiting loopholes is in our blood even if it means we’re robbing ourselves of that satisfaction we get from relying on our skills and talent to finish a game.

But savestates are not a feature within the game-design. It’s part of the emulator’s design, an external feature like a Game Genie or Action Replay or whichever enhancer you’re using. Savestates are a convenience. It compliments us. We no longer have time to toil over challenging levels and troublesome final boss. We want to the option of putting down a game and picking up right where we left off at any time. Savestates give us that ability and under the right conditions it can provide us with that extra advantage over any difficult challenge.

I imagine the abuse of savestates like time travelling. If something goes wrong I can just go back in time until I get it right.  I wasn’t playing a real copy of the game, so I convinced myself that the normal rules of gameplay shouldn’t apply and I used every means at my disposal. All without remorse.

Every journey I took I can recall like a fresh breath, but I have no memories of the victories.