This is you, right?

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/DaveBaggett/20131031/203788/...

I really enjoyed that story.

I had a random question about this: I remember Crash 1 had a password-based "save" system where the player could skip ahead to a level if they entered the password for it.

Was the creation of that system motivated by the as-of-yet-unsolved memory card bug? Or was it just standard practice to support players that didn't buy the memory card? I can't remember many games using something like that, but it was a long time ago.