I am extremely  disappointed that Dragon Quest 9 only allows you to have one game save. I bought this thinking that my daughter and I could play different adventures using the same cartridge and DS. But, it turns out, they only let you have one save per cart! So, what, if I want to have two saves I have to buy another copy of the game?!  
 
Lame! 
 
I like the game so far, but the one-save thing is irksome. I wish they'd allow you to save to the system memory.  
 
Anybody know of a way around this one-save nonsense?

Both Pokemon and DQ are pretty massive games.  I think more than being some kind of money making scheme, it's just memory limitations. 

With the DSi, there's really no reason we shouldn't be able to save to an SD card, but the games just haven't taken advantage of that technology.  Hopefully it's something we see more with the 3DS, it definitely seems Nintendo has become aware that much of their tech is borderline outdated at this stage.. especially in regards to online play.

Maybe they see it as a way to get you to buy two copies of the game, one for you and one for your daughter. Especially with the local mutliplayer feature. But it could be that the DS cart is packed (RPG's tend to include large volumes of data) so they could only allow for one save state without removing content from the game. But I'm inclined to think the former is more likely.

EDIT: Basically what the guys above me said.

Is it really that surprising that game companies are trying to force you to buy multiple copies of the game if you want multiple people to play it?

Yeah the whole one-save thing has been pissing me off since the pokemon games made the transition to the DS. Back on the GB, this shit seemed excusable b/c of limited memory and such, but not anymore. Im really surprised i dont see more people complaining about this.

You create every single partymember in that game right? I bet that's a large save file.

i would have to agree with the notion it was probably a retarded choice to force people to buy their own copy. just another strike for asshole companies.  
 
 
dance puppets dance..

Having one save slot does not bother me. And if I remember correctly the game director, or someone said that the save file is very large.

As some already said. The size of the old Pokemon carts made one save reasonable. However times have changed. Plus some of the new DS have memory card slots don't they.

Even if the Gameboy was memory limited, I can't understand why the custom SD cards Nintendo are using on the DS can't hold more than one save slot. If they really wanted to, they probably could just restrict you to making one less custom character in order to have multiple saves, or even just removing redundant memory. While on the PS2 you couldn't get away with a single slot, the DS has different expectations. Therein lies Nintendo's  commercially driven reason for keeping this to a single save.

You could get an R4/Acekard or whatever flash cart then you can have as many save slots as you want. 
 
If the piracy thing bothers you then you can still buy the games yourself and then use the roms, you will be morally okay because you've still paid for the game, you should be able to save to as many slots as you want really.

" @tuque: I guess they're taking the Pokemon route so that everybody has to have their own game and DS to play. Not surprised considering its Nintendo - that's how they make these games sell. "

Having more than one save slot lets you hack trades so you can have one file that does the trade, and another file saved without doing the trade.

I really hope the 3DS will introduce saving on an internal memory or SD card. I hate having one save files for some games.

This seems pretty ridiculous that this is still an issue in 2010.

to be fair Devil Survivor had 1 save too, and I doubt that was due to any ulterior motive (it was on a 64 mb card instead of 128 as I recall)

" @zonerover said:

" @tuque: I guess they're taking the Pokemon route so that everybody has to have their own game and DS to play. Not surprised considering its Nintendo - that's how they make these games sell. "

The game was made by Square Enix.  Nintendo is only publishing it in North America and didn't do anything to change the way the save system works.  That being said, it doesn't bother me.  A lot of DS games take the same route; particularly those with wireless functions such as the ones Dragon Quest IX supports. "

I find it more surprising that instead of researching the matter, people would rather speculate radical non-sense, like they want you to buy two copies.  Ryutaro Ichimura, the game's producer has already explained why there's only one save slot, basically there's not enough space on the system for two traditional save-slots, instead there is a backup system.  If there is battery failure or something similar, there'll be a backup of your save.  Personally, I'd much rather have this on a portable system where it's likely that battery failure or something else potentially save-damaging could easily occur.  It's just a shame the DS isn't strong enough to allow multiple save slots AND a backup slot.  As mentioned above, I too hope the 3DS allows for more save slots or perhaps saving to an SD card.

It's not that the DS isn't strong enough, it's the space on the card not a limitation of the system. 
 
Like I said, flash cards (Acekard, R4) all allow you to have as many save slots as you want, actually that could be the wrong the limit could be, erm...10. A big bonus of the flash cards though is that you can access the saves on your PC and back them all up that way, not sure if there's a way to do that with standard DS games but it's damn sweet.