Lost game save...? AHHH NOOOOOOOOOOOO! :(:(:(

[stuffedmonkey]

So I was playing Earthbound, really far into it - about the 6th "your sanctuary" guy, and I accidentally moved the cart slightly - not more then a 1/4th of an inch, when I walked by. The screen went into heiroglyphics. No big deal, I turned off the SNES. I came back to play some more later - and ALL of the game save data is blank!!!

This sucks so bad! There is no way I am going to redo all that work - it took forever! Is there some trick to get my game back - or am I just completly screwed. I assume the latter.... Just really posting to vent....


:( !

[Nesmaster]

that really sucks. mine did the same, only after i had finished beating it. i went through the game again since then, though.

[DigitalSpace]

Something similar happened with me and NBA Live 96' for the SNES about a week and a half ago. I was about halfway through a season too, and it would have been the first time I ever completed a full season in any sports game.

At one point, my copy of Yoshi's Island seemed to erase the save files anytime I took it out the SNES, but I gave it a cleaning, and that was the end of that.

[Gapporin]

I have done that twice. Once with a season in Super Baseball Simulator 1.000 (no big deal), and again with a save in Final Fantasy III (ouch!).

[Psycho Mantis]

I got very far in earthbound, the part right before you fight starman deluxe.
i save, turn it off, and a day later, my file is gone. it was a sad,sad day. :(

[Iron Draggon]

This kind of thing is why password save schemes will always be better than battery save schemes. There's no batteries to go dead, and no glitches like this to erase all your progress. You only have to not lose your password, and not write it down incorrectly, but that's the only bad things that can happen.

[Ed Oscuro]

This kind of thing is why password save schemes will always be better than battery save schemes.
Hah! Yeah, hard drives explode, too! I really miss the days when I had to print out a program on punch cards and feed them back into the mainframe! Ha! Ha Ha!


You only have to not lose your password, and not write it down incorrectly, but that's the only bad things that can happen.
Those are pretty damned big 'if' statements! A serious NES game player will go through a whole notebook in a few years and there's no guarantee you'll be able to find your code later.

[SoulBlazer]

That's why I use emulators these days. :D

[vision89]

Heh, I was playing Y's I & II on my Turbo Duo. I had spent a week or two on it and was very close to completeing Y's II. Then the next time I started my Duo, I had accidentally left tht turbo turned on my controller. Well, somehow I got to the memory management screen, hit a button not realizing the turbo was on, and it instantly registered as several hits on the button, and (if you didn't see this coming) I accidentally erased my Y's file! :(

[Azazel]

That's why I use emulators these days. :D

I agree. Save states are the best. For YS 1 and 2 at least it has both passwords and you can save directly to the system.

[NESaholic]

I had it a couple of times with different games,i hate it when it happens and i don't play the game for while cause it frustrates me so much when i think back of what happened.So i leave it a couple of weeks and start all over again, positive part you know exactly how to pass the obsticles,but that's it. :/

[The Manimal]

This kind of thing is why password save schemes will always be better than battery save schemes. There's no batteries to go dead, and no glitches like this to erase all your progress. You only have to not lose your password, and not write it down incorrectly, but that's the only bad things that can happen.

What about a game like METROID (NES)?


I would have to write down TEN passwords each time because most of them wouldn't even work.... (and yes, I'd write them down carefully)

[joshnickerson]

For some reason, I always lose my Donkey Kong Country save, but not from a poor battery, but from someone always deleting the file! From my sister to my room-mate's stoned girlfriend, every time someone plays that game, they always delete the file and start a new game because "They didn't want to run the game I had saved." So you just delete it. Thanks. :angry:

[rbudrick]

I always wished River City Ransom for the NES had a save feature. Those passwords were WAY too damn long and complicated. used to have to write down two passwords, all written very neatly and carefully checked. Then they didn't work..so frustrating.

The only battery backed saves I ever lost were all on the NES. I never had a problem with any other systems' games.

-Rob

[8bitnes]

I lost my saves of Dragon Force, Albert Odyssey, Shining Wisdom, Blazing Heroes, Dark Savior, Legend of Oasis, and Sim City 2000 on the Saturn when my memory card quit working! It was a tough day. I am certain I broke something in the frenzy that came after. Plus, the closest store to get a new memory card was 60 miles away and I was not of driving age yet.

I've also lost dozens of saves of Tecmo Super Bowl and a couple with Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior.

[TRM]

This kind of thing is why password save schemes will always be better than battery save schemes. There's no batteries to go dead, and no glitches like this to erase all your progress. You only have to not lose your password, and not write it down incorrectly, but that's the only bad things that can happen.

I disagree. Take Faxanadu for instance. I wrote down some passwords for that game, and they never worked no matter how much I tried.

And yes, I always checked the passwords numerous times while writing them down.

[Lady Jaye]

Ah yes, writing down passwords and trying to find back the right password later on... how about in a game like Wonder Boy III: Dragon's Trap? That's one of those password save games.

Ultimately, I prefer memory card saves. Yes, it can still get corrupted and all, but it's still more reliable than the old "hold reset while turning off the NES" trick of Zelda on the NES...

[Aussie2B]

A couple summers ago I was replaying Crystalis, and I was in a small bedroom with my boyfriend on the computer right next to me. The controller cord stretched from the system on the dresser to the bed I was sitting on, which meant that my boyfriend was "trapped" in by the cord. After I told him "When you get up and turn around, DON'T TRIP ON THE CORD" numerous times, what did he do... he got up... and tripped on the cord. >_< He was fine, but NES went boom... right down to the floor. When I put everything back nicely and turned it back on, my two files were gone. :( I was pretty far in too.

As for files randomly erasing, I've had that happen with a few SNES games, but I've never lost every single file on a game (which is exactly why I always make back-up files) and I've also never had a battery completely die. When I lose data, it's almost always after a very long period in which I haven't played the game.

[BIGMIKE]

oh Diablo for psone, gave me fits. i would have my game saved then it would be corrupted if i didn't play it daily. speakin of.... i hope my characters are still saved. i think the last time i checked they may have disappeared :( i have the warrior maxed out tooooo . had the others in the 30's as well. man i gotta check that out.......

[Shawn Carr2o]

What about Castlevania II Simon's Quest on the
Nes. I would write down the password and it
would never work and so i had to stay up all
night to beat it. -_- My Super Metriod on my
Snes and my save file is still there since 1994
and it was really cool! that it is still there. 8-)

[devilman]

When I think of password saves, one game always springs to mind - James Pond III. Class platformer but a god-awful password system! Rather than lots of numbers/letters, it was different coloured items. So of course, to write them down, you're having to write out 'red cheese, blue hat'... that kinda thing. I guess mistakes were easily avoided but damn, that was annoying.

[Daria]

I remember I was playing Shining Force: Sword of Hajya once and I'm staring at the screen and reach out with my other hand for a glass of water without once moving my eyes off the game. Of course I smack the glass right into the game gear and the screen blitzes on me. Turn it back on. No saves.

Said "Fuck it" and bought Shining Force CD instead (same game incase you were wondering).

[drummy]

It was like that with my Pokemon...*sigh*

[8bitnes]

My Super Metriod on my
Snes and my save file is still there since 1994
and it was really cool! that it is still there. 8-)

My Pirates! save from NES (1993) is still active too!

[slip81]

I had the same problem with a Yoshi's Island cart as DigitalSpace, but in my case I got all the way to the last stage on world six, turned it off so I could go do something else, then later took the cart out of the SNES to play another game. A day or so later when I put Yoshi back in to beat it, all games were erased. That was a year ago and I still haven't played through it again out of anger.

[Kid Fenris]

I remember I was playing Shining Force: Sword of Hajya once and I'm staring at the screen and reach out with my other hand for a glass of water without once moving my eyes off the game. Of course I smack the glass right into the game gear and the screen blitzes on me. Turn it back on. No saves.

Said "Fuck it" and bought Shining Force CD instead (same game incase you were wondering).

My sister had saving problems with her copy of Sword of Hajya, which would delete her stored quest roughly one out of every ten times she turned on the system. It drove her nuts. I told her to exchange the game, but I don't know if she ever got around to it.

She managed to beat the game several times, though, as it was the only decent Game Gear title she owned.

My personal save hell also involved a Shining Force game: Shining Force III, Part 1 on the Saturn. In the game's final chapter, the main character, Symbios, changed classes. I saved, started the next map, and found that Symbios was GONE. His absence caused all sorts of bizarre glitches and rendered the game unplayable. A new disc didn't do any good; the problem was apparently in the save itself.

I've come to suspect that the Shining Force series hates my entire extended family. I half-expect to wake up to a phone call one morning and learn that my great uncle choked to death on a Shining Force II Genesis cart or something.

[om3ga]

Yeah try Chrono Trigger for Snes.

Played the Game + about 3 times through ... all my guys were max stats at level 98.


.............. Friends lil bro erases the whole thing.

[Promophile]

This kind of thing is why password save schemes will always be better than battery save schemes. There's no batteries to go dead, and no glitches like this to erase all your progress. You only have to not lose your password, and not write it down incorrectly, but that's the only bad things that can happen.

You have to remeber tho, for a game such as, for example, Final Fantasy 3(6) for SNES, there are hundreds and hundreds of items, not to mention the different stats and levels of every character, and your place in the game. A password to retrieve your place would have (I assume) hundreds of letters/numbers/whatevers.

Personally when I own a battery save game I download a ROM on my PC and play it there. It's the only way to make sure your save doesn't die. Its only a matter of time since even SNES games are passing the 12 years old mark.

[Snapple]

Bumping.

I just had a saved game hard luck story of my own.

I was playing Valkyrie Profile for the first time, and I did abotu 20 hours of work. Then, I accidentally saved over my main file with an old backup file from around the beginning of the game. So all of my work is gone, and even though I wanted to finish the game, I really don't feel like doing it all over again.

Maybe if I put it down for like six months, I won't mind playing it again, but for right now, my motivation is completely killed over my mistake.

Not happy. Not happy.

[cyberfluxor]

Snapple... that completely sucks. Hate it when that happens.

There's at least a dozen games on my Playstation that have been killed and wish they never were. In addition games on the SNES carts that their batteries died and no longer have saves on there as well. In addition, a few games on the Dreamcast I can't find anymore.

I guess the deadliest accident was with Unreal Turnament for the Dreamcast. I beat EVERYTHING on every difficulty and unlocked the whole game. I was ranked Godly. It took a good 40+ hours for me to get that done and lost it all somehow. I think the memory card was exposed to a magnet or some EMF that cleared it. I haven't played it again because it gets sooo boring after you beat easy difficulty. The same levels, same bots, different AI and accuracy.

Something that doesn't fall under deletion was last year when an on-line character of mine died. I spent a good 300hrs on that character and someone used a hack that was supposed to be patched and killed me in a hardcore game. I gave up the game after that because it was just a waste of time after that.

[Blitzwing256]

I think the worst save erase I ever had was when I got a copy of saga 2 for the gameboy off ebay (final fantasy legend 2 jap for anyone who cares) and it had save files at the end of the game with max stats and most of the best items.

I wanted to backup the 2 really good saves onto my computer...however I decided to play the game a little bit before i dug out the dumping hardware...
I played a bit through the first cave..charecter #1 had gained 1 strength point at the end of the battle..and I instinctively SAVED

and since the game doesn't prompt you if you "really want to save over a file" I quickly realized my mistake.
the game went into the pile never to be played again

(i'm now replaying the us version on my ngage trying to max out in the first world)

as for passwords I remeber 2 games fondly

metal gear, I was fairly early in the game..I had keycard 1 and 4 and a few weapons, I wrote my password down (I had rented the game) and stopped playing because my parents had wanted to watch tv (didn't have my own tv back then)

after they were done watching tv, I went back to play...put in my password. INVALID !
I grumbled a bit..and tried it again..I believe i got the l and 1 mixed up and put it in again
PASSWORD ACCEPTED!

I started the game and for some reason I had the machine gun already equipped with 99 bullets
i was like WOA! I went to my inventory and looked at the weapons...I didn't have the machine gun but had the rocket launcher beretta and grenade launcher.
wierd...i went into my items and had a ton I didn't before including card 6,7 bombblast suit and a few other random items.

I was able to beat the game fairly easy from this point, I was able to bypass a few of the trickier things like fighitng the arnolds and getting the oxygen. what made the password so wierd, is the machine gun wasn't where it should be , but every time you load the password you have it till you go to your inventory screen or pick up ammo.
(this actually led me to a neat "Free" item trick you can do with passwords)

another time I was renting legacy of the wizard and I was getting nowhere, I decided to play with the password system a bit, and after just putting in alot of random crap i got a working password
it gave me every item in the game (minus the fire wand) as well as 7 crowns! (note you can only get 4 in the game) I was able to easily beat the game that day with that password, in fact i've memorized the password and put it in from time to time to show people the ending to a very hard game.

so password saves aren't THAT bad ;-)

[BrokenFlight]

I got to 97% on GTA3. I went to play it again and it said the save file was corrupt. Noooooo! Luckily it was back in the days when I still absolutely loved the game, so it was no problem getting to 98% again. Then it got too hard to do the last 2% and I gave up, never to play it again.

[Austin]

My friend lost an entire PS2 memory card once, due to some faulty demo disc Sony sent out. He'd had nearly 50 hours into Xenosaga, so he was understandably angry.

[Lord Contaminous]

I know how bad that really sucks.

>My copy of Illusion of Gaia, if you accidently turn the SNES on with the game halfway inserted, it knocks out save data.

>I had it up to here with my Famiclone. I got to Pandemonium in Final Fantasy IIj, then all of a sudden, controller port 1 got out of whack reversing the controls and I unplugged the controller and put it back in. the game blacked out, and erased ALL the data, even the data of the game's previous owner.

[PentiumMMX]

I've had a few problems like this:

Mystical Ninja Gtarring Goemon (N64):
All I needed was one more item before I can face The Final Boss (Spring Breeze Dancin), when my memory card died! I also lost my save in Castlevania 64, but I didn't care that much, as I was further in Mystical Ninja.

The Legend fo Zelda (NES):
I was at Level 5. All I had to do was beat the boss, but I desided to save and play some Super Mario Bros. 3. When I went back to Zelda, my Save File was gone! I did the "Hold in RESET while Turning Off" thing and it still didn't work!

Sonic 3 & Knuckles (Genesis):
I just beat the game as Sonic (I beat it as every character), when I desided to stop. When I started playing again, All my saves where gone, including a Tails file I had on there since 2002! So I tried starting a new file as Tails, got to Hydrocity Zone and stopped. WHen I started again, the file didn't even save! What's worse is that I can't find another 1st edition Sonic 3 cart. All I find is the Majesco Sales version and pirated versions! At least my Sonic & Knuckles cart still works

That's all I can remember

[lordnikon]

This stuff is all so silly. Video Games are not jobs. Many people treat them as such, and it is a horrible habbit to get into. Someone will have completed a game 100% and beaten it entirely. Their save will somehow get erased, and then they moan and goan, "Great... Now I have to play the game all over again." So, as long as they have a complete game save, they have no reason to play the game again, and if the save gets deleted then they will make another pass through the game? Stupid.

Games are supposed to be fun. If the core game mechanics are not fun to you, and replaying a game is some sort of nightmare then what are you doing playing the game in the first place?

I can understand that there will be a period of "mourning" when you lose a save for a very involved RPG. Especially an online one where you have logged hundreds of hours. If my save in Phantasy Star Online were to get corrupted, I would just make a new save and keep on playing. The core gameplay mechanics are IDENTICAL at level 15 as they are when you are at 150. They only difference is that your weapons look different, and the number over your head has a 0 after it.

If your save gets deleted, in any game, take a break from that game for a bit, and then come back to it later and start up a new save. The key is to have fun.

[nik]

My friend lost an entire PS2 memory card once, due to some faulty demo disc Sony sent out. He'd had nearly 50 hours into Xenosaga, so he was understandably angry.

Heard about that, nice boo boo sony!

[BrokenFlight]

Not a save, but today I was playing Sonic 2 and Knuckles on my Nomad in the car. I was near the end when I accidentally tapped the cartridge on the steering wheel and the game froze.

I've hardly ever had the enthusiasm to play right through the game but when I do, something comes up that stops me.

[NinjaJoey23]

Recently lost save on Yoshi's Island and The Legend of Zelda: LTTP. I was mad at LoZ, so I sold it to a game store for credit.

Not giving up on Yoshi's Island yet though.

[wavracer]

The CR2032 lithium batteries in games are rated to last at least 5-6 years, but most seem to last between 10-15 years. As a general rule, I replace the battery before I am about to begin playing a game with the intent of finishing it. That way I never lose my saves.

The battery replacement thread with pictures is here:

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=82757