What was your most devestating loss of gaming progress due to unforeseen circumstances*?

[gbpxl]

*i.e. power outage, someone tripping over a cord or console, game freezing up randomly, someone intentionally disconnecting power while you're playing

I've been pretty lucky but the only things that come to mind are maybe an NES game freezing up if I left it paused for too long. Some of those games were so hard ans it would suck if you had to start all the way over from the beginning if you wanted to turn it off and come back to it.

I've randomly lost save files now and then. 1st gen Pokemon games come to mind. Lost a Crystalis save file recently. I think I had forgotten to hold down Reset while pressing the power button.

I haven't had any power outages affect gaming. Usually when it has happened, I'd be on my phone so I wasn't affected.

[Steve W]

I had a character in Phantasy Star Online for the GameCube around level 120, which represents a shocking amount of time to grind up to that, and one day I'm saving and moving to the GameCube to shut it off and my hand gently brushed against the memory card. That completely corrupted the data on the card. I spent hundreds of hours getting my character to that level and it was all lost. I could never put much effort into playing it too much after that, having to start from square one was too soul crushing.

[gbpxl]

very sad, man :-(

[goldenband]

This one's not too bad, but:

When a certain game was released by a certain indie publisher, I was one of the first to get it, and immediately started playing, reaching the endgame within a few days after 15-20 hours of play. Wasn't quite strong enough for the final boss, so I shut down for the night and planned to resume in the morning, grind a bit, and finish the game off.

When I turned the game back on, my save file was clearly corrupt or hadn't loaded properly, and when I reset the game autowiped all of the save slots immediately. I audibly said "Are you f-cking kidding me?"

A few years later I replayed the game and had no difficulty beating it the second time around. I don't know what the cause of the error might have been, but since I didn't move the cart or unplug my console all night, and the cart seemed physically sound and the battery retained all saves from that point forward (i.e. I didn't need to replace or reseat it), I suspect there's a bug lurking in there somewhere.

Otherwise, I once had a great run going on the hardest possible settings in the roguelike Tower of Doom on the Intellivision -- weakest character, toughest scenario, was one level before the end -- when my game softlocked. The time investment on that particular run was modest, only an hour at most, but of course all roguelikes require dozens of attempts to get to that one dream run.

Fortunately it wasn't that long afterward that I had a winning run with the same settings.

[YoshiM]

Nothing near as bad as a corrupt saved game of hours upon hours but: I was playing Halo on the Xbox, fighting my way towards the end. There's a part where you had to fight your way out of some stronghold with a bunch of funky crab creatures (?-it's been years since I played it so my memory is a bit rusty). Anyway, there's a part where you drive a warthog to do some sort of daring escape and at that point the game froze. I had to hard reset and I got back to the last save point, but the segment was grueling and a pain in the butt I decided not to try again that night. Nor have I played it since.

[Niku-Sama]

i think the worst progress i lost was when a PSX memory card failed.

Gran Turismo nearly 100% but the 60 fps mode unlocked
GT2 the same
Megaman legends after many hours
Chrono Cross after more hours
and various others that i was in the middle of

the one that really sent me over the edge was all the unlocks in marvel vs capcom because i knew i couldnt do that again.

[kupomogli]

This one isn't due to a power outage but because not using guides I didn't know this was going to happen. But on Parasite Eve you get to name one weapon and one armor at the end of the game. Now whenever you finish the game, everything in your inventory plus that weapon and armor are in the box when you restart. Now, I just assumed that it allows you to rename two pieces of equipment but everything gets thrown in your box regardless, what I didn't realize is that it only carries over what was in your box, not what was on hand at the time unless it was renamed that game. So my two pieces of equipment(which have already been renamed) I decided to rename two other pieces of equipment and then used these ones during the last boss.

I lost a pistol that only shot one bullet per action(so no reduced damage because multiple shots,) it allowed my character to take three actions per turn, had all the stat up effects, it also used shotgun shells so it had spreadshot to deal damage to other nearby enemies, and had explosive damage. This pistol was essentially a rocket launcher in handgun form and it was from all the guns from four different playthroughs into one powerful super gun.

Despite already being renamed, the weapon was not carried over because it was in my possession, not in the box when I killed the last boss on that playthrough and it was not renamed on that specific playthrough which doesn't count towards what will carry over.

[Rickstilwell1]

My wife had a completed save file of Red Dead Redemption on her Xbox 360. She hadn't played it in a while as she gravitates to newer systems. Well I saw her system as an extra because I had found a cooler special edition 360. I kept mine in my office and hers in the garage with the "extras." It was a bad move because it was stolen among other things. Now if she wants to have a completed save file where she just goes around and does whatever she wants, she will have to replay the game from scratch first. Luckily she has a completed save file of Red Dead Redemption II on our PS4 which is more easily accessible. We have since moved to a safer place and I've been gradually rebuying things that were taken.

[Genesaturn]

Me and my cousin were rotating while playing through Silent Hill back when it came out. We were close to the end when my little sister who was in the room, got scared and ripped out the memory card midsave. To this day I never went back to finish the game.

[AceAerosmith]

I was playing Just Cause 2 on the Xbox 360 and was 73% done according to the save file when suddenly the save file disappeared. I didn't bump the machine, no power interruptions, nothing. It just disappeared. Something else went wrong with the game too as all NPCs disappeared from the game world.

[Ryudo]

Skies of Arcadia.

I got 55 hours in and saved but got a corrupted save file. I was pissed off. Still, I loved the game enough I played another 50 hours got to nearly where I was before. Saved and in the middle of saving the power went out. Lost my save data. That was 2004. It took me until 2016 to go back to the game start over and finally finish it.

[Az]

Several years ago I decided to upgrade my Xbox 360 HDD. I had the original white model that used the side caddy for the drive. Hooked up my replacement drive to the system with the fancy pants transfer cable, initiated the copy feature, and right as it was about to finish it went ape shit and stopped.

There is no copy option on this process, only move. The error ended up not transferring anything to the new drive and deleting everything on the old one. Everything.

I wound up being able to salvage almost all of my game saves with a paid PC program that could restore the file structure from a table of contents wipe. If it wasn't for that program I'd have been screwed.

[Bphutchins]

Mine is definitely when I was a kid, i rented dragon warrior from the local rental store. I rented it 3 times, having to return it in between. The third time was going to be the time I beat it. I opened my save file, which was still there, but someone else had rented it in between, opened my saved game and dropped the silver harp, god knows where. I was devastated at the time lol

[gbpxl]

who the hell plays off someone else's save file/profile? isn't that like breaking the 1st Commandment of video games?

[Rickstilwell1]

Mine is definitely when I was a kid, i rented dragon warrior from the local rental store. I rented it 3 times, having to return it in between. The third time was going to be the time I beat it. I opened my save file, which was still there, but someone else had rented it in between, opened my saved game and dropped the silver harp, god knows where. I was devastated at the time lol

I don't think it's possible to drop that item. Maybe they gave it to the character who wanted it but didn't take the staff of rain from the chest and left.