Aging Gamer: Passwords

<p>On the last <em>Aging Gamer<&sol;em> <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;aging-gamer-memory-cards&sol;">article<&sol;a>&comma; I talked about how difficult life use to be under the iron thumb of <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;remember-when-memory-cards&sol;">Memory Cards<&sol;a>&period; This week I&&num;8217&semi;m going to tell you about an even more antiquated way to save your game&comma; passwords&period; Yes&comma; there was a time when cartridge based games did not have batteries in them to save your progress&period; You either had to leave your NES or Genesis on for hours on end&comma; which could damage the system or television&semi; or you had to lose your progress and try again another time&period; At the wee old age of 8 this really didn&&num;8217&semi;t bother me too much&comma; I played games for entertainment and was happy to replay them over and over&period; I will say this though&comma; passwords were insanely cumbersome and could be lost very easily&comma; especially when you were 8 years old&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>There was a title though where I kept copious password notes&comma; in fact if I scoured my room now I&&num;8217&semi;m sure I could still find the yellow paper with my childish scribbles upon it&period; <em>Faxanadu<&sol;em> was one of my favorite NES games of all times&comma; in fact the game holds a special place in my heart to this day&period; This title was one of my first RPG experiences&comma; of course I played <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;legend-zelda-twilight-princess-hd-review&sol;"><em>The Legend of Zeld<&sol;em>a<&sol;a>&comma; but that game was too open world for my young mind and I needed more of a plotted course&comma; which still holds true today&period; The only way that you could save in <em>Faxanadu<&sol;em> was to go to a church and have a priest give you an extremely long and complex jumble of letters and numbers so that you can continue your journey to rebuild your kingdom&period; You would have to write this code down perfectly or you would lose everything&comma; and being so young accomplishing anything in this game was a feat unto itself&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;136707" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-136707" style&equals;"width&colon; 640px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"size-full wp-image-136707" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2018&sol;03&sol;18230147&sol;faxanadu&lowbar;password&period;jpg" alt&equals;"" width&equals;"640" height&equals;"426" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-136707" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Faxanadu<&sol;em> &&num;8211&semi; Nintendo&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p><a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;gamefaqs&period;gamespot&period;com&sol;nes&sol;587273-faxanadu"><em>Faxanadu<&sol;em><&sol;a> was one of the rarer games that let you save when you found a certain place&comma; for <em>Mega Man<&sol;em> and <em>Kid Icarus<&sol;em> you had to beat the level and quit&period; <em>Mega Man<&sol;em>&&num;8216&semi;s password system was pretty archaic too&comma; you had to write down a grid and enter the dots accordingly after beating some of the toughest bosses&period; It would almost be easier to do some games in one sitting instead of jumping into this way of saving progress&period; I cannot imaging playing Skyrim and having to save in a temple and then writing down a nauseatingly long password every time I booted up for fifteen or twenty minutes&period; It&&num;8217&semi;s great that hard drives&comma; memory cards and save batteries were invented otherwise gaming would just be insanely inconvenient now&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Passwords were part of the darkest days of gaming&comma; sure the platformers and RPG&&num;8217&semi;s we played in that era were amazing&comma; but man&comma; if we knew then what we know now we wouldn&&num;8217&semi;t have enjoyed those games at all&period; I can&&num;8217&semi;t even imagine the Atari age&comma; from what I remember of my little time playing that machine there was no memory at all&comma; every time you shut down you would have to restart&period; The Atari 2600 was the first real binge gaming machine&comma; you had to beat the game in one sitting or you would have to start all over again&period; That seems like a nightmare to me&comma; I&&num;8217&semi;d hate to have to restart <em>Fallout 4<&sol;em> with all my progress lost because I had to go to bed&period; We have to be thankful that gaming pushed through these dark times&comma; had it not we might not have anything to look forward to at E3&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>&nbsp&semi;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;<p style&equals;"text-align&colon; center&semi;"><strong>Like what you read&quest; Check out more of my <a href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;bagogames&period;com&sol;tag&sol;aging-gamer&sol;">Aging Gamer<&sol;a> series on BagoGames&period; <&sol;strong><&sol;p>&NewLine;<hr &sol;>&NewLine;