The original Japanese version only saves the unlocked features and not the battle progress. If you die in any time in any stages you are at in the Japanese version, it's "Game Over" and you have to start all over again. When Koei released this game in the US, they decided to add the in-battle saving progress feature to eliminate this frustration for US players. When the player destroys a box, sometimes a Memory Card icon appears and when the player collects it, that's the only time you can save an interim battle.