History Main / PasswordSave

* ''VideoGame/{{Repton}}'' and ''Repton 3''. Their absence on ''Repton 2'' is the main reason ''2'' is considered the hardest game of the series: you cannot complete it unless you do it in one sitting.

* ''VideoGame/{{Lemmings}}''

* ''TheSmurfs'' (though using them was usually a bad idea, because playing from the start allowed to collect more ExtraLives for the very difficult endgame)

-->--A ''VideoGame/{{Metroid}}'' password responsible for a ''lot'' of WildMassGuessing

** ''Scary Dreams/Buster's Bad Dream'' uses an example similar to the two SNES games, but unlike ''Buster Busts Loose'', the passwords work for all three modes of the game; "Easy", "Medium", and "Hard".

** ''Buster's Hidden Treasure'' for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive has a 20-letter password, divided by five four-letter sections. However, the furthest the game can take you when you enter a password is the first act of the final world, so if you want to skip to the last level, you're gonna have to play through the first three acts of the last world first.
** ''Buster Busts Loose'' for the SNES had a password system consisting of three spaces for pictures of faces of the characters from the show. Unfortunately, the only mode that uses these passwords is "Children".
** ''Wacky Sports Challenge'', also for the SNES, used a similar password system, represented by Furrball, Shirley, and Fifi dressed as cheerleaders holding up signs.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Metroid}}'' for the NES, the "Justin Bailey" password became famous for the amount of [[WildMassGuessing speculation]] over its supposed meaning. In the [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar earlier versions,]] you could also use [[spoiler: ENGAGE RIDLEY MOTHER FUCKER]] to great effect. The original Japanese version of ''Metroid'' had on-disk saving, being a Famicom Disk System game. ''VideoGame/KidIcarus'', also originally a Famicom Disk System game, used the same password system.

* "Level" passwords: The password records what level you're on, but that's about it -- don't expect information such as your [[ScoringPoints score]], [[VideoGameLives lives]], stats or items to be stored. In other words, the password basically doubles as a level-select. Obviously, this is limited mostly to puzzle games, and games with linear level progression, where collecting secondary items isn't necessary for advancement. They are usually human-legible words or phrases, and may contain inside jokes from the developers.

Many of the more complicated password systems are case-sensitive and also use numbers. The reason is that 26 lowercase letters, 26 uppercase letters, 10 numerals, and 2 other symbols add up to 64 (two to the fifth power), which means that five bits of raw data can be encoded for every character in the password.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Metroid}}'' for the NES, the "Justin Bailey" password became famous for the amount of [[WildMassGuessing speculation]] over its supposed meaning. In the [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar earlier versions,]] you could also use [[spoiler: ENGAGE RIDLEY MOTHER FUCKER]] to great effect. The original Japanese version of ''Metroid'' had on-disk saving, being a Famicom Disk System game. ''KidIcarus'', also originally a Famicom Disk System game, used the same password system.

* ''VideoGame/RiverCityRansom'' for the NES had 33-character passwords, mixing uppercase letters, lowercase letters and numbers. The GameBoyAdvance remake made passwords unnecessary, though a bug would create a new save file instead of overwriting the previous one, making the game unplayably slow if you didn't erase them often.

* ''DragonsLair'' on Super NES had password that had to be entered through a difficult minigame. In the European version, you had to push balls with the correct letters in the correct holes one by one to form the password. Needless to say, it was long, tedious and it wass possible block a letter into a corner (making it {{Unwinnable|ByMistake}}) or even ''[[EpicFail die]]''.
-->[[JoueurDuGrenier I just died in the password screen! Is that a joke?]]
** The American version had a different minigame (where you had to hit the balls with your sword until the correct letter appeared) which was thankfully nowhere near as tedious or frustrating.

* The home computer versions of the first ''Film/{{Ghostbusters}}'' game had a password system that allowed [[NewGamePlus starting a new game with the money accumulated at the end of the previous one]].

* The long (20-char) passwords in TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames are of two kinds: One encodes (at least) the player and baby's names, the other encodes the RingOfPower collection.

* ''VideoGame/LegacyOfTheWizard''

!Examples of "level" passwords:

!Examples of "game state" passwords:

** There's three types of passwords to use, depending on how much data you want to import into the game. Bronze passwords only import character levels, Djinn collected, and items that grant new moves like the Orb of Force. Silver passwords imports the above plus the actual character stats. Gold passwords import everything, including coins and items held, but the password is a whopping 260 characters long and the risk of making an error is quite high. If you have a second GBA and a link cable, then data transfer is easy.

-->JUSTIN BAILEY \\

* ''VideoGame/LegacyOfTheWizard''

* ''{{Faxanadu}}'' for the NES had a "Mantra" that you learned at a [[SavePoint local temple]]. They tended to be extremely long and easily mis-written.
** Notably, the password saved all your equipment, spells, and key items, but did not save your experience or money. Instead, you would get a "title" based on your experience points, and when you died or loaded from the password, you would be given a specific amount of money based on your title, and your experience points would reset to the minimum for the title as well. Titles had no other benefits, but you could abuse the system to buy something very expensive, get the password, reset and get quite a bit of money back.
* ''LegendOfTheMysticalNinja'' for the SuperNintendo had a short password for levels, and a long password for returning to a current game with all your items (sorta like a save state).
* ''RiverCityRansom'' for the NES had 33-character passwords, mixing uppercase letters, lowercase letters and numbers. The GameBoyAdvance remake made passwords unnecessary, though a bug would create a new save file instead of overwriting the previous one, making the game unplayably slow if you didn't erase them often.

* ''TheGuardianLegend'' had 32-character passwords, again mixing uppercase letters, lowercase letters and numbers.

* ''LegacyOfTheWizard''
* In ''{{Metroid}}'' for the NES, the "Justin Bailey" password became famous for the amount of [[WildMassGuessing speculation]] over its supposed meaning. In the [[GettingCrapPastTheRadar earlier versions,]] you could also use [[spoiler: ENGAGE RIDLEY MOTHER FUCKER]] to great effect. The original Japanese version of ''Metroid'' had on-disk saving, being a Famicom Disk System game. ''KidIcarus'', also originally a Famicom Disk System game, used the same password system.

* ''JamesPond 3: Operation Starfish'' had a system where you had to input a 16-symbol password, made up of about 30 different types of symbol which could be in any of four colours. You spent almost as much time writing down "Red Fish, Blue Diamond, Blue Plane, ..." as actually playing the game.

* The first ''CrashBandicoot'' had ''both'' types of passwords: Just beating the levels without collecting the gems earned you 8-character level passwords, but collecting a gem expands that to a 24-character ''Super'' password, which also keeps track of gems and keys, and which the game initially hides by only showing the first 8 character spaces before inputting a Super password. Unfortunately, these don't record lives, which can make later stages a pain.

* ''DragonsLair'' on Super NES had password that had to be entered through a difficult minigame. In the European version, you had to push balls with the correct letters in the correct holes one by one to form the password. Needless to say, it was long, tedious and it wass possible block a letter into a corner (making it {{Unwinnable|ByMistake}}) or even [[EpicFail ''die'']].

* ''DragonsLair'' on Super NES had password that had to be entered through a difficult minigame. Where it's possible block a letter into a corner (making it {{Unwinnable|ByMistake}}) or even ''die''.

* ''VideoGame/MegaMan2'' up to ''6'' used a simple password system of dots on a grid; all SNES games (''7'', and ''VideoGame/MegaManX 1'' thru ''X3'') used a 4×4 grid of numbers.
** ''2'' and ''VideoGame/MegaMan3'' also saved the state of the game in the form of how many E-tanks you collected. ''II'' for the GameBoy did the same thing.
** There's a few middle cases, however. Passwords also stored a limited amount of information besides which Robot Masters you defeated. ''VideoGame/MegaManX'', for example, stored how many [[HeartContainer Heart Tanks]] / [[EmergencyEnergyTank Sub Tanks]] and which armor pieces you'd collected; ''VideoGame/MegaMan5'' recorded which BEAT pieces you had.
** Mega Man based fan games, like {{Rosenkreuzstilette}} and RokkoChan, often use this as a nod to the older games.