History Main / PasswordSave

* ''[[VideoGame/GanbareGoemon Legend of the Mystical Ninja]]'' for the UsefulNotes/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).

* The NES adaptation of ''[[VideoGame/NineteenFortyTwo 1943]]'' uses a password that contains the stage you've reached as well as the stats of your plane. The passwords are rather compact by the standards of this trope, using only five alphanumeric characters; this is achieved by having two stats tied to each of the three middle characters (your plane has six different parameters with six levels each), the starting level is used for the first, and the last character serves as a checksum that ''also'' prevents you from entering an early level with absurdly high parameters.

* The NES adaptation of ''[[VideoGame/NineteenFortyTwo 1943]]'' uses a password that contains the stage you've reached as well as the stats of your plane. The passwords are rather compact by the standards of this trope, using only five alphanumeric characters; this is achieved by having two stats tied to each of the three middle characters (your plane has six different parameters), the starting level is used for the first, and the last character serves as a checksum that ''also'' prevents you from entering an early level with absurdly high parameters.

* The NES adaptation of ''[[VideoGame/NineteenFortyTwo 1943]]'' uses a password that contains the stage you've reached as well as the stats of your plane. The passwords are rather compact by the standards of this trope, using only five alphanumeric characters.

* The NES adaptation of ''[[VideoGame/NineteenFortyTwo 1943]'' uses a password that contains the stage you've reached as well as the stats of your plane. The passwords are rather compact by the standards of this trope, using only five alphanumeric characters.

Many of the more complicated password systems are case-sensitive and also use numbers and symbols. The reason is that 26 lowercase letters, 26 uppercase letters, 10 numerals, and 2 other symbols add up to 64 (two to the sixth power), which means that 6 bits of raw data can be encoded in each symbol. Without lowercase, 32-symbol alphabets (consonants, digits, and a couple symbols) provided 5 bits per symbol. (Japanese games could also use the [[UsefulNotes/JapaneseWritingSystem hiragana and katakana syllabaries]], each of which provides 45 symbols.) Though this extra encoding can cause problems in and of itself - depending on the font used in the game, some characters could easily get mistaken for others (Like capital i 'I' vs lowercase L 'l' or the digit '1' or uppercase o 'O' vs the digit '0' - some games avoided this by simply removing characters that can be mistaken for others from the keyboard to prevent confusion), and some players might simply not have good handwriting, resulting in an otherwise accurately recorded password being incorrectly typed when the game is started up again several days later due to a misreading. As games went on it actually became mandatory to remove vowels to prevent kids from entering in vulgarities, as some of these vulgarities ''were valid passwords'' that would get shared around the schoolyard, like ''VideoGame/MetalGear's'' infamous FUCKME code that started you at the final boss of ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' with no weapons or items, and yes it was purely coincidental. [[https://i.imgur.com/KFb2w4Z.png Compare the US and Japanese versions (left) and European versions (right) of Metal Gear's title screen]].

* In ''VideoGame/{{Metroid}}'' for the NES, the "Justin Bailey" password became famous for the amount of [[WildMassGuessing speculation]] over its supposed meaning. In the earlier versions, you could also use [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3UyVylP7AI ENGAGE RIDLEY MOTHER FUCKER]], which crashes the game in newer ports. 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.

* "Game state" passwords: A lot more complicated than level passwords, these record essentially all the information that a SavePoint would: What items you've acquired, your character stats, key event flags, and so on. Enter the password and you can pick up from (almost ''literally'') the exact moment you left off, or at least some [[BroadStrokes decent approximation]]. The length of the password will depend on how much information is being "saved", so a "game state" password that records a lot of things will require a longer password. Also, to discourage players from attempting to cheat the system by inventing their own passwords, the password may incorporate a "checksum", a small combination of symbols whose only function is to verify that the rest of the password is (or at least ''looks'') legitimate.\\

Many of the more complicated password systems are case-sensitive and also use numbers and symbols. The reason is that 26 lowercase letters, 26 uppercase letters, 10 numerals, and 2 other symbols add up to 64 (two to the sixth power), which means that 6 bits of raw data can be encoded in each symbol. Without lowercase, 32-symbol alphabets (consonants, digits, and a couple symbols) provided 5 bits per symbol. (Japanese games could also use the [[UsefulNotes/JapaneseWritingSystem hiragana and katakana syllabaries]], each of which provides 45 symbols.) Though this extra encoding can cause problems in and of itself - depending on the font used in the game, some characters could easily get mistaken for others (Like capital i 'I' vs lowercase L 'l' or the digit '1' or uppercase o 'O' vs the digit '0' - some games avoided this by simply removing characters that can be mistaken for others from the keyboard to prevent confusion), and some players might simply not have good handwriting, resulting in an otherwise accurately recorded password being incorrectly typed when the game is started up again several days later due to a misreading.

* The ''VideoGame/MegaMan'' series, starting with ''VideoGame/MegaMan2'', had passwords for most of its cartridge-based games. As the level sequence in a ''Mega Man'' game can vary due to player preference, even the most basic of these can be considered "game state":

* In the UsefulNotes/GameBoy port of 'VideoGame/MilonsSecretCastle'', The password feature was added.

* "Game state" passwords: A lot more complicated than level passwords, these record essentially all the information that a SavePoint would: What items you've acquired, your character stats, key event flags, and so on. Enter the password and you can pick up from (almost ''literally'') the exact moment you left off, or at least some [[BroadStrokes decent approximation]]. The length of the password will depend on how much information is being "saved", so a "game state" password that records a lot of things will require a longer password. Also, to discourage players from attempting to cheat the system by inventing their own passwords, the password may incorporate a "checksum", a small combination of symbols whose only function is to verify that the rest of the password is (or at least ''looks'') legitimate.

->JUSTIN BAILEY \\
[=------ ------=]

* In the GameBoy port of 'VideoGame/MilonsSecretCastle'', The password feature was added.

* In ''VideoGame/TheAdventuresOfLomax'', after every level, you receive a code consisting of 8 symbols, which happen to be the classic Playstation symbols (and they're present ''even on PC''). These codes preserve information about the amount of lives and continues you have, and which level you reached.

** The 2017 remake uses the now-classic "three save files", but is ''also'' fully compatible with the old-school password system. You could start a game on the Switch version, continue it on a real Master System, and finish it on the PC version.

** ''Scary Dreams/Buster's Bad Dream'' for the Game Boy Advance 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".

* ''VideoGame/TheGooniesII''

* ''[[VideoGame/GanbareGoemon Legend of the Mystical Ninja]]'' 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).

* ''War of the Dead'' on the PCEngine had passwords that were 54 characters long and mixed [[UsefulNotes/JapaneseWritingSystem hiragana, katakana and romaji]] to get 7 bits out of each character. The developers apologized for this cumbersome password system.

** The 2017 remake uses normal save files, but is ''also'' fully compatible with the old-school password system. You could start a game on the Switch version, continue it on a real Master System, and finish it on the PC version.

** The original game used a 14-character password as its unique way of saving and continuing the game.

** The original game used a complex password as its unique way of saving and continuing the game.
** The 2017 remake uses normal save files, but ''also'' supports the original game's passwords for nostalgia's sake. You can start a new save file from a "retro password", or obtain some from the same old NPC.

* ''VideoGame/WonderBoyIIITheDragonsTrap''

Many of the more complicated password systems are case-sensitive and also use numbers and symbols. The reason is that 26 lowercase letters, 26 uppercase letters, 10 numerals, and 2 other symbols add up to 64 (two to the sixth power), which means that 6 bits of raw data can be encoded in each symbol. Without lowercase, 32-symbol alphabets (consonants, digits, and a couple symbols) provided 5 bits per symbol. (Japanese games could also use the [[UsefulNotes/JapaneseWritingSystem hiragana and katakana syllabaries]], each of which provides 45 symbols.) Though this extra encoding can cause problems in and of itself - depending on the font used in the game, some characters could easily get mistaken for others (Like 'I' vs 'l' or '1' or 'O' vs '0' - some games avoided this by simply removing characters that can be mistaken for others from the keyboard to prevent confusion), and some players might simply not have good handwriting, resulting in an otherwise accurately recorded password being incorrectly typed when the game is started up again several days later due to a misreading.