Most of the games I played back in the day had some way of resuming your progress at a later date, whether that was an actual save system, a password system, or even a hidden warp zone. What were you supposed to do for longer games that had no way at all of resuming your progress after switching the console off? Get good enough at the start of it that you could play the game faster and eventually complete it in one go, or just leave the console on overnight and continue the next day?
(and yes, my Mega Drive is currently sitting powered on because I couldn’t think of a better way to keep my progress)
I agree about the time. And its not always trying to have true authentic experience (as much as emulation can give it to me).
For one the controllers and input devices are not very true to original source (at least my snes knockoff pad is). Then for certain type of systems, such as very very old systems using tapes, I will just fast have instant loading. No need to wait 30 minutes to load, lol. Also sometimes playing at higher resolution is also fun. And then we have Romhacks… that’s no longer true to source, by its nature.
Last year I started playing the Sailor Moon RPG on my Steam Deck. But English translation and even with a mod to have less grind. So all my talk about true authentic experience, and then I do this stunt. :D Just saying I agree with you in longer version.
Pokémon was my first emulator experience, being able to fast forward and save at will was a huge upgrade. Now I think about it I do sometimes still play on original hardware for fun though!