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 was a sega master system kid.
I think the games were pretty adapted to it.
Land of illusion I’d get good enough to do in one go. Or leave the console on over night. It can be completed in an hour or so without speed strats.
Phantasy star has a proper save on the ROM.
Megaman 2 (NES) had s clever 5x5 code to type in to resume. It contained your lives, powerups and a checksum.