Saving Your Games on Nintendo Switch Online: A Quick Guide

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One of the great benefits of having a Nintendo Switch Online subscription is the ability to dive into a vast collection of classic Nintendo games from various consoles, including the NES, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Game Boy Advance, Nintendo 64, and even SEGA. Subscribers can relive the nostalgia of classic titles like Mario, Zelda, and Donkey Kong, along with many others.

Although these retro games play well on the Switch, they come with certain restrictions, especially regarding how you save your progress. Unlike modern titles that often have auto-save or cloud-saving features, many of the games available through Nintendo Switch Online lack these options. Therefore, players must be diligent about manually saving their progress to avoid restarting.

How to Save Games on NSO

How to Create a Suspend Point

Saving your progress on older Nintendo consoles was fairly straightforward. You’d just open the game menu, navigate to the save screen, and hit Save. Some games even featured auto-save capabilities that would capture your progress automatically at certain checkpoints. Additionally, with Nintendo Switch Online’s cloud save system, you can access your saved files across multiple devices.

However, when it comes to games from Nintendo Switch Online’s classic catalog, saving works a bit differently. Some titles allow for in-game saving, which you can access by pressing the Reset button, creating a temporary Suspend Point that will appear in the HOME Menu. Keep in mind that these Suspend Points are temporary and will disappear when you turn off your console or start a different game.

An active Nintendo Switch Online membership is required to access the game library and features such as Suspend Points.

To transfer the temporary Suspend Point to a permanent save slot in the Suspend Point List, simply press down on the D-pad, then select either A or X, depending on your device. To prevent accidental deletion or overwriting, highlight the save file with the D-pad and press Down to lock it. Press Down again to unlock it.

How to Create a Suspend Point on NSO

Create a Suspend Point to Save Your Progress in NSO Games

A Suspend Point is a feature offered by Nintendo Switch Online that allows you to save your progress in classic games. To set up a Suspend Point, just launch one of the classic games available. Press ZL and ZR on your Joy-Cons at the same time. You’ll then see a screen prompting you to select “Create Suspend Point.” From there, you can choose one of four available save slots.

Any saved points will be displayed in the Suspend Point menu, complete with a timestamp indicating when they were created. If you’re playing a multiplayer game, only the host or player one can create Suspend Points in that session. With these points, you can quickly pick up right where you left off in your favorite classic titles on Nintendo Switch Online.