Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions Only Has One Save File

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If you thought the worst was over when the outrage over Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D’s restrictive save system had subsided, think again. Capcom’s crazy little scheme to thwart used sales has been picked up by another publisher, Namco Bandai, and has been put to use in their freshly-released 3DS title Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions.

According to Wired, Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions lacks the ability to actually delete anything, whether that’s your high score or the content that you’ve unlocked. There isn’t a score table either, so at any given time you’ll only have one high score to reference. Once you top it, it’s forgotten about, meaning that you can’t track your progress or share the game with your friends to see who can get the better score.

Admittedly, the lack of a score table isn’t that big of a deal, but what is the issue is the inability to delete the content you’ve unlocked. As you make your way through the four games included in Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions, you unlock achievements that reward you with new content. There’s no way to delete this unlocked content, so you can’t start fresh, and whatever resale value the game had is pretty much shot.

Even if Capcom said they considered the restrictive save system as something that enhanced the experience in Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, it’s pretty clear that other publishers like Namco Bandai don’t, so don’t be surprised if we see more publishers jumping on the chance to add something like this to future 3DS titles.

I’m not entirely sure that this is the best thing to do if publishers want the 3DS, and by extension their games, to flourish. I know this isn’t as big of a problem if you only buy new, but what happens if you want to revisit a game a few years down the road and everything’s already been completed? Hopefully other publishers will realize that doing something like this isn’t the way you win fans and will choose not to go down this road, but I’m not very confident in that actually happening.