I accidentally deleted my save game (blunders thread)

[Gentlegamer]

I've been playing through Crystalis, such a great game. I was near the end, but hadn't played it in a week. When I started up the game today and went to load my save game, I chose SAVE instead of LOAD... wiping out my saved game.

Have you ever accidentally deleted your save game or committed other fatal game blunders?

[ZeroCool]

A few times writing down the password for Bases Loaded 2 I didnt write it down legibly and lost 10 games. I had to replay those.
A Link to the Past the battery just erased on its own.

[Leo_A]

I somehow did this with my Wind Waker save a few years ago. I like to keep my first save intact, but I wanted to see the ending. So I fired it up, beat Ganon, and watched the ending again.

But I apparently selected the option to restart the game after the end credits rolled, so my previous progress has now been erased.

Still slightly irritates me when I have my save file intact for every other Zelda, except this one. I know it doesn't matter and it's not like it affected my progress since I was finished (And it's still there in a way since I'm at the start of the 2nd quest which adds some minor changes and my figurines should've been carried forward). But it still bugs me just a little bit.

I guess I'll just have to wrap up the 2nd quest one of these days with Link's blue tunic and whatever else was changed, to once again have my original save be fully complete.

[ProjectCamaro]

I think we've all done it. I got to the point where I would always save two copies of my progress as a just in case measure.

[Tanooki]

I've only finished FF1 on the NES once back when it was new. You may wonder why I never did it again in all these years. As a kid around friends, school, homework...stuff, it took me many months due to the horribly crappy XP and GP gains on a battle in the game to get anywhere having to buy all the gear and spells. One day I finished the thing, was super happy about that going nuts I did it. I came back a day or two later, and my save game was gone and I felt sick, then angry. I started poking around, my ass of a younger brother who thought RPGs were stupid (too young to get it I guess) decided to fire up my game and walk it to the first inn and save it. He got his ass kicked, ever since I can't play the thing farther than the crescent lake, usually melmond pre-vampire distance. In later years I did finish it once or twice on the GBA, since it doesn't have that disgustingly annoying MP system and it has normalized XP/GP gains too.

[Querjek]

I used to have this adapter for the Gameboy Advance that let me switch between three cartridges at once. I mean, I had to turn the console off between switches, sure, but it seemed like a pretty simple adapter.

I had never played through A Link to the Past before and was in the final dungeon.

I don't want to talk about this anymore.

EDIT: I also once had a Missingno for seven days. I'll never forget my organic level 99 Dewgong and Zapdos, rest their souls.

[wizardofwor1975]

Question: The other day my brother asked me to bust out the soldering iron and replace the battery in his Zelda II: The Adventure of Link cart. Out of curiosity, can your saved games be erased after you replace a dead battery? I haven't pulled the battery yet and I wasn't sure.

[SparTonberry]

On non-Flash/EEPROM-based carts (which is almost everything before N64, with a few exceptions) the connection between the RAM and the battery is what keeps your saves stored, so once you take out the battery your old saves will probably be corrupted (which will cause most games to detect the saves as empty)

And from the first post, Crystalis' save system is just stupid. Choosing Continue on the title screen should take you to the load screen. It shouldn't be pretty much the same thing as starting a new game but skipping the opening cutscene and being given a default blank name. The way it does is just asking for trouble like the OP had.

[Gameguy]

Question: The other day my brother asked me to bust out the soldering iron and replace the battery in his Zelda II: The Adventure of Link cart. Out of curiosity, can your saved games be erased after you replace a dead battery? I wasn't sure.

If the battery is dead then the saves would already be deleted.

[Daria]

I was playing Shining Force: Sword of Hajya once, in bed, on my gamegear, in the dark. I was pulling an all-night binge session, a good way into the game I picked up my glass of water and was about to take a drink (without looking away from the screen) when I missed and smacked the glass into the gamegear. The System froze and when I got the thing restarted I had wiped my save files. Said fuck it, and later played the scenario on the Sega CD version instead.

[XYXZYZ]

I was changing the battery on my Neo Geo MVS board to avoid the corrosion issue, taking note that a capacitor somewhere would keep the SRAM warm for a little while so if I do it fast enough my high scores would still be intact. I soldered in the new battery as quickly as I could, and checked my Sonic Wings 2 cartridge to find my high score was indeed retained. I was fumbling around in the service menu, hit the wrong button and manually erased the settings and scores for Sonic Wings 2.

[BetaWolf47]

I was trying to run backups for GameCube using a method with Datel's SD Media Launcher. Had my memory card with all of my important saves in the other memory card slot. Long story short, karma is a bitch.

[Tanooki]

I can say from earlier this year doing my first battery surgery on a NES game if that battery dies or is removed, the save data is just wiped instantly. They don't have extra parts on those old Nintendo carts of whatever era to retain data once the battery cell eats it.

[Arkanoid_Katamari]

I had my save file delete for Kirby's Superstar somehow, I was somewhere towards the end of the game and hadn't played it in several months, and I went back a few days ago to finish it, and the save file was gone. No idea why. I was ok with it though cuz I now get to play through an amazing game again.

[BlastProcessing402]

I have accidentally saved over things before, seems like I had an incident like that recently, fortunately not a major one, just something I'd wanted to keep at an earlier point as a back up, but I can't remember which game it was. Something on the 360 I think.

I somehow did this with my Wind Waker save a few years ago. I like to keep my first save intact, but I wanted to see the ending. So I fired it up, beat Ganon, and watched the ending again.

But I apparently selected the option to restart the game after the end credits rolled, so my previous progress has now been erased.

Still slightly irritates me when I have my save file intact for every other Zelda, except this one. I know it doesn't matter and it's not like it affected my progress since I was finished (And it's still there in a way since I'm at the start of the 2nd quest which adds some minor changes and my figurines should've been carried forward). But it still bugs me just a little bit.

I guess I'll just have to wrap up the 2nd quest one of these days with Link's blue tunic and whatever else was changed, to once again have my original save be fully complete.

Yeah, I hate the way Nintendo does saves, always saving to the slot you started in, then giving you options to copy those saves at the title screen, rather than just letting you save in whatever slot you want. Also, three slots? Still? C'mon Nintendo, I loves you guys, but that's like, so 20 years ago.