Radiant silvergun saturn mode saving

[cave hermit]

I have some microsoft points, and I'm thinking of getting Radiant Silvergun, but I heard that the story or saturn mode actually saves your weapon levels and eventually gives you more default stock lives, which strikes me as taking some of the challenge away. I heard that you can select whether or not to save, but if you do save, does the mode force you to use the available save, or can you still play without loading the save? Can you select how many lives you start with if you unlock more? Are the unlocked lives attached to a story mode save?

[near_miss]

Earned lives/credits are kept separate between the modes. You can keep three different continue data slots per storage device. In storymode, I'm not sure if there's a way to select your life count once you unlock more... You could just pick "new game" though! Hope that helps.