Ever resumed somebody else's saved game?

[bangtango]

Pretty much everyone here has found used/old cartridge games at a flea market or thrift store that already had stuff saved on them. It might be an rpg, a sports game, Zelda, Mario, Donkey Kong Country, Phantasy Star or something else entirely. Maybe it was on the NES, Genesis, N64 or something in between. Unless you got the game from a friend or family member, you'll probably never know who the previous owner was. What do the rest of you end up doing with those saved games?

A few weeks ago, I picked up a couple of Sega Genesis/32X games in a thrift store. For the Genesis, I found "Greatest Heavyweights." On the 32X, I bought "NFL Quarterback Club." A day or so later, I bought "Zelda II: Adventure of Link" (classic) for the Game Boy Advance at GameCrazy.

When I played "Greatest Heavyweights" a few days ago, I found a couple of saved games in the Career Mode. One boxer was a couple of matches from winning the title and the other boxer only had one fight under his belt. Instead of erasing these two boxers and starting over, I have decided to resume their careers and see what happens. They are headed up the rankings as we speak.

Next I tried out "NFL Quarterback Club" (32X). I decided to try loading up saved games to see what was there. The previous owner was in the midst of a 14-1 season with the Dallas Cowboys, one game away from the end of the season. I played the 16th game in that season and have led Dallas into the playoffs.

The person who had "Zelda II" before me had finished the first five palaces and wasn't that far away from beating the game. I decided to jump right in where he/she had left off. What I noticed is that whoever was playing before me knew very little about some of the secrets in "Zelda II." They were missing at least one heart container and magic jar that you usually would have picked up by that point. What was puzzling was that they had yet to find the mirror, so they were missing the Life spell from the town of Saria. This was despite that fact that he/she had apparently been into every other town on the map, including New Kasuto. I thought that was funny but I also had to admit that person needed to be somewhat good to make it through all those later palaces, and the boss fights, without the Life spell.

Who else has a story like this? I know a lot of people might erase any saved games if they pick up a used game. For some reason, I have decided to continue a couple of boxing careers, a football season and a Zelda quest all of which were started by a total stranger. It is part of my nature to try and finish what other people started. That way all of their previous work to that point wasn't in vain. Of course they'll never know somebody else finished those games and probably have forgotten about them long before.

This doesn't have to be limited to cartridge games either. It could be a saved game from a hard drive (XBox) or memory card (Playstation) if you happened to have a copy of the same game there was a save for. For the purpose of this particular discussion, I'd prefer that you limit it to saved games that were started by a total stranger or a friend. It isn't quite the same when you pick up where a brother, sister, child, companion or spouse left off.

So the question is: Have you ever resumed somebody else's saved game?

[skaar]

I still remember leading "ASSMAN" "BITCH" and "FUCKJOB" through Secret of Mana's later dungeons.

Resuming other people's saved games seems dirty and wrong to me. I delete them immediately if I buy a used game.

[Kitsune Sniper]

I bought a lot of Dreamcast Memory Cards a while back and I can't bring myself to deleting the contents...

They have saved games and replays for Power Stone 2, Capcom Vs SNK, several NBA and NFL games... it kinda bugs me because I want to delete them but I can't because they're not my games.

[Keir]

I find these kinds of things fascinating. The only problem is, if it's a game where resuming someone else's saved game might "spoil" it for me (i.e. RPGs that I haven't played before) then I have to save them for later, and sometimes delete them if there aren't enough empty slots.

[Wolfrider31]

I remember renting games (usually RPGs) when I was little and being forced to delete other people's files to play. Eventually though, an unwritten rule was established (among people who never met) that no one was to delete/alter the file that was furthest along in the game.

I remember playing Final Fantasy VI and watching a guy who named his main character "Dave" go all the way through the game. It was actually kind of exciting. I would pop into his file every now and then to see where he was and what awaited me.

Although, my file always ended up getting deleted.

[wallydawg]

I kept the tetris dx save on my gbcolor game. Dudes name was Adam, had over 20,000 lines. I can play against "him" in a versus match so it's pretty rad.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

it kinda bugs me because I want to delete them but I can't because they're not my games.

I feel the same way. I bought Saturn memory carts which had a number of saved games on it, but I could never delete them. I also never tried loading up the saves even though I had quite a few of the games they were from.

Cartridges are different since there you're dealing with a limited number of save slots, so I usually delete saves on used carts I get, though in that case I will check them first to see what was going on in the other player's game.

I don't know what I'd do with someone else's saves on a VMU, luckily it's never happened to me. VMUs aren't nearly as big as a Saturn backup cart, but I don't know if I'd feel justified deleting them. I'd probably move them to one of the unused pages of one of my 4x cards or something.

The only time I've played someone else's save is on Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow. I bought that last summer and it had the previous owner's save on it which was absolutely and completely maxed out. The guy had found every single soul, made every single weapon, gotten every single item and accessory, etc. Obviously that's too cool of a save to just delete, so I'll leave it on my card. It also gave me a chance to play Julius mode before I'd finished the game myself, which was pretty cool.


...word is bondage...

[aaron7]

I used to love renting games and seeing other people's saved games that were SO far ahead of me. Zelda for SNES comes to mind here!

[theshizzle3000]

I have only done it with Super Mario 64, but it was after I had beaten it myself and I wanted to see where the other person was at in the game. I have also used a Dex Drive on occasion as well.

[Superman]

I usually leave at least one save on the game. I like to see where the previous owners were at in the game and see how it plays without waiting for the all the background stories that come with starting a new game.

I also like to leave the save so I can compare the level of my character to the other game at a similar point. It's usually pretty amusing comparing the games; I either can't figure out how the person got to that level with so few power ups and items, or I can see the reason why the save is at the point that it is (they couldn't go any further).

[Kamisama]

heh, nice question.
I never used another ones savegame. Always started from the start

[Zing]

I am one of those jerks who would deleted every save from every game I rented. I only did it because people always did it to me!

I rented Dragon Warrior II three times, having to start from the beginning every time, until I finally bought my own copy.

[grolt]

I had a funny experience with this the other day, buying a boxed Sega Saturn brand memory card. The owner said it had never been used, but I popped it in and there were two Sim City 2000 saves on it. Whatever. The funny thing though, was the naming of the cities. Every save says something like SIM_CITY:CITYNAME001 or whatever. So the first one: SIM_CITY:HOLLYWOOD. Fair enough, we all envy the glamour of Hollywood. The next save? SIM_CITY:JEWTOWN. Thinking I must be reading it politically incorrectly (maybe it's Jewt Own?) I load it up. Lo and behold, it's a huge open area of light residential in the middle surrounded by a big road, like some sort of camp. On the perimeter are police stations the whole way around. There are then power lines around all the rest of the map shaped into giant Swastikas. This dude had some issues.

[Sweater Fish Deluxe]

So the first one: SIM_CITY:HOLLYWOOD. Fair enough, we all envy the glamour of Hollywood. The next save? SIM_CITY:JEWTOWN.

So he had the same city on there twice?

I kid..I kid...

It's true, though.


...word is bondage...

[Overbite]

When I bought FF3 used I loaded up the cart and found all 3 save spots filled with level 90+ characters all named GOKU, VEGETA, KRILLIN, ect. 3 saves, all 90+ and at the end of the game, all with DBZ names. Holy crap.

I deleted the lowest level save and started new in that one. The guy who had this cart before me was a huge nerd.

[Nukie]

When I bought my LttP used cart the top save was a complete game (all hearts, everything done). It's still sitting there and I deleted the other ones.

[King Neptune]

Back in the day I bought Super Mario RPG brand new and when I popped it into the SNES, lo and behold, there was a saved game on it o.O I don't know if the game was tested and then not erased or what, but the game was saved all the way up to Punchinello which is like the 3rd star! lol I went ahead and played from there and beat the game. Later I started my own.

[Slate]

I remember doing it in my first copy of Pokemon stadium that I bought from EBGames. I couldn't delete it, It had mewtwo in there!

[Barbarianoutkast85]

I think I've ever done this type of thing with one game. It was Super Mario RPG for the SNES. The save wasnt very far into the game, maybe four or five hours. So I figured I would just go from there instead of going threw all the boring stuff at the very beginning of the game.

[otaku]

usually no but I have before but usually I delete them. Almost always delete my stuff before selling/trading