Despite many posts of the last 20 years saying otherwise, Lode Runner DOES have a save feature and
Alexios
found it for me! My ps1 version is us, but doesn't have a manual. My saturn one has a manual, but is jp. I had thought of using google lens on the manual, but I was too lazy and searched, which steered me wrong.
With that, I cracked into the game proper and I'm loving it. I have not properly played it since it was new 30 years ago. The world one music is one of those that has popped into my head ever since. Great game! Some nasty brain teasing that may remind you of lemmings if you've never played it. Doesn't look like lemmings, but staring intently at the ant farm-like level while plotting what order of actions will beat it is the same feeling.
So right before that, I was going to try panzer dragoon 2's hard mode. I had always just run through the game on continues, and found it very easy. Well. Turns out I just never knew the game very well. The hard mode I remember is actually part of a fun cheat menu. There is no hard mode in the "straight" game. It has a difficulty rank system. So I started playing for score. Now, I had never wanted to do that in this game because the gameplay is kinda imprecise and I didn't think that sounded fun. But I started this evening and sho nuff, the game gets harder and generally opens up with your rank going up and down. Fun. Now I feel like I can play if for hours and hours.
So I've gone back and forth between Lode Runner and PD2 all evening and I'm in heaven. I play retro consoles for two reasons: a. Time traveling (this is different than nostalgia. i actually don't like nostalgia.) b. games that are still legit great. This evening is all column b and these games are just plain good. So with all my great hardware, a sega saturn continues to dominate my gaming time.
Such a great system. My collection is alright now and includes plenty of games I've never tried. Some quite good ones I've never beat, too. I think I'm going to try starting something a little longer on it soon. I tend to use old consoles like for pallet cleansers between more modern long games. Like the enormous ff rebirth i finished a month ago. So I throw in short or skill-based games. Or just check out curiosities I find cheap.
I haven't played PD Saga since it was new. Maybe I'll start that soon? It's not terribly long.