Worst save file loses... :cry:

[daphatty]

I've heard friends complain about losing save file data for this and that game but never truly understood their pain.

Until 10 minutes ago.

I just lost about 15 hours worth of gameplay data on M&L Superstar Saga. It really was a stupid way to lose the data too. I was sitting on my porcelain lay-z-boy and decided to get up. I found a save point, initiated the save, and set my GBA on top of my clothes hamper while the save was in progress. I turned to reach for some paper when WHAM! My GBA hit the floor and reset the game. Needless to say, no amount of praying would resurrect my save file. It's gone. :cry: Learn from my mistake. Never place a GBA on top of a hamper that has a convex cover. Just hold the damned thing until it's finished saving.

Do you have a horrific story? Feel free to share your misery. Together, we can heal.

[JSweeney]

You have an issue if you can't even stop playing videogames long enough to go to the bathroom.
Either that, or you need more fiber in your diet if you sit on the toilet that long.

[daphatty]

You have an issue if you can't even stop playing videogames long enough to go to the bathroom.
Either that, or you need more fiber in your diet if you sit on the toilet that long.

Actually, I think my issue is that I'm addicted to gaming. I was only sitting there for 5 minutes! :lol:

[CaseyRyback]

how about losing your memory card with 300 or so hours of Smash Bros. completed, Resident Evil played through several times and many out fits unlocked

I was so pissed, I was short only 20 trophies from having all of them

[storky]

i read your thread and immediately thought of what happened to me two days ago: I also lost my data in Superstar Saga! WHile no porcelain was involved, i figure there must be some kind of curse going around. Damn you, Wailuigi!

[WhipSmartBanky]

Man, I don't think I would ever bring my SP in the bathroom...though, I do have an old original GameBoy in there with Tetris. Good times.

[Doylerulez]

I have 2 non-bathroom related lost save files.

In Secret of Mana for snes, my sister who was 10 at the time decided to start a game by saving over my file(even with 1 empty slot) which had all but 2 weapons upgraded to the max with orbs, which was a pain in the ass to do because it was so random to find the last orbs. She then never played again after being killed by the 2nd boss. I remind her to this day :evil:

The other was when I was at college, I was playing Parappa the Rapper when my roomate tripped over the cord and reset the game and screwed all my saved data which I had all "cool" for each level.

[captainfrizo]

After reading these stories I'm glad I keep a back-up save of important games on memory cards or on games such as Superstar Saga incase something happens to the file I'm using.

[SS4Brolly]

I accidentally deleted my Final Fantasy 5 (PSX) game file by hitting buttons and not watching. I was at the last save point too. Never did finish the game.

[Wshakspear]

i had a PSO ver 1 dc save that corrupted after 492 hours.

And in a smaller accident, had an almost finished save of legacy of kain : soul rever go bad as well. Never did finish it

[Atreadon]

GTA3, almost completed. Like a complete dumba$$ I shut off the PS2 while it was still saving. I have no idea what I was thinking, but I've been kicking myself ever since.

[Rich]

About 300 hours of Morrowind.

[daphatty]

bump

[XboxMaster]

Ok, listen to this one. Well, I had this friend that started going to another school two years ago. He called me last summer all the sudden and asked if I wanted to do something. So, I arranged for him to come over to my house. That day I caught him with two things of mine in his pockets about thirty minutes before he left. He tried to act like it was a joke, but it was obvious it wasn't cuz he tried to swat my hands away and then he said that the two items were his. Then about two weeks later, he came over again, I had forgotten what he had done last time, so that is why I let him come over again. Well, he got jealous of my new GBA SP and Pokemon Ruby I had gotten a couple of days before. Right after I showed him my Ruby, it disappeared. About half way through his visit I noticed and we looked for it for awhile. Then I knew he had stolen it, I asked him over and over and was about to beat his ass. Then he put on an act that made me believe he was innocent, he actually started crying and said he did so because he was so frustrated I didn't believe him. And at the end of the day when he was leaving, I checked all his pockets but one, his back pocket. It had crossed my mind that I should check it, but then I decided not to. A week later I luckily got it back from him when his Mom found out. He had started a new game and my game was lost. I had one more badge to go, and he deleted my game. I called him to tell him what an asshole he was, and out of curiousity, I asked him where he hid it when he left. He said he hid it in his back pocket, the one place I contemplated about checking, but decided not to. Obviously, he hasn't been back over since then.

[punqsux]

in october 97 i lost a ps1 memory card, not that big of a deal...except my data for ff7 which had just come out was on it! ...had to re play the entire first disk =op i mean i still re play that game but i was pissed, i wanted to beat it!

[Whambamm]

The only mishap that pops into my mind is when I played Wild Arms at my friend's house for the first AND second time. The summer of '99, I think, my brother and I were pretty much constantly over at my friend's house because my brother and my friend had become incredibly addicted to Ultima Online. I didn't particularly care for it, so I decided to play an RPG my friend had that I had never heard of, Wild Arms. I was completely engrossed by that game and actually played about 20 hours in 3 days. Wouldn't you know it? My friend comes into the room and trips over the cord, causing the game to freeze and all of the memory on the memory card to become corrupt. I got really pissed, but I just decided to go get my memory card and start over. I get to the practically the exact same spot, save, turn it off. When I come back a hour later to play, my memory card has become corrupt, and figure it is something with my friend's Playstation. Long story short, I did end up starting again, and it turned out to be my favorite RPG ever. But 6 days wasted that summer really sucked.

[Ben_F]

Ok, listen to this one. Well, I had this friend that started going to another school two years ago. He called me last summer all the sudden and asked if I wanted to do something. So, I arranged for him to come over to my house. That day I caught him with two things of mine in his pockets about thirty minutes before he left. He tried to act like it was a joke, but it was obvious it wasn't cuz he tried to swat my hands away and then he said that the two items were his. Then about two weeks later, he came over again, I had forgotten what he had done last time, so that is why I let him come over again. Well, he got jealous of my new GBA SP and Pokemon Ruby I had gotten a couple of days before. Right after I showed him my Ruby, it disappeared. About half way through his visit I noticed and we looked for it for awhile. Then I knew he had stolen it, I asked him over and over and was about to beat his ass. Then he put on an act that made me believe he was innocent, he actually started crying and said he did so because he was so frustrated I didn't believe him. And at the end of the day when he was leaving, I checked all his pockets but one, his back pocket. It had crossed my mind that I should check it, but then I decided not to. A week later I luckily got it back from him when his Mom found out. He had started a new game and my game was lost. I had one more badge to go, and he deleted my game. I called him to tell him what an asshole he was, and out of curiousity, I asked him where he hid it when he left. He said he hid it in his back pocket, the one place I contemplated about checking, but decided not to. Obviously, he hasn't been back over since then.


Why did you not beat his ass the first time. Duh. I dont hang around distrustful people, and i dont paticularly care for them either (once a theif always one sorta thing.)

Stoners on the other hand, are another story entirely.

[ragincajun]

fight sephiroth in FF7, last boss, last save before him, I kid you not my file was gone, I was soo pissed off

:evil: :evil: :(

[metroidkiller9]

my friend stole my psone memory card with final fantasy 7, 8, 9, and tactics to name a few. had about 90 hours on tactics alone.

[daphatty]

fight sephiroth in FF7, last boss, last save before him, I kid you not my file was gone, I was soo pissed off

:evil: :evil: :(

Now that is depressing! That's like 70+ hours of gameplay! (At least it was for me...)

[chosen1s]

Clearly the morals of this story are:

1) Have a backup memory card
2) You guys suck at picking friends

[terribledeli]

Anyone who loses a major PSO save deserves to be the saddest. Hell, especially if it was Sega and their double save ''feature'' was to blame.

Never lost a save file. My viddy games are too precious to allow a SNAFU like losing a save file.

[E-Z-B]

I've repeatedly lost files to Ultima (1st one) on NES. I think the battery in the cartridge is faulty. Anyone know if it's possible to buy a new one yourself and replace it? It'll suck when all our games with built-in batteries start to fail in another few years.

[E-Z-B]

And I should add if it's possible to replace the battery yourself WITHOUT sacrificing another game's battery. Not sure if they're some standard battery, like a watch battery, or if stupid nintendo made their own battery sizes.

[daphatty]

You'd be surprised at the variety of commercially available batteries. And since the NES is really old, I doubt that you'd have a hard time finding a replacement. The trick IMO is opening the cartridge without destroying it...

[GSJaia]

I have backups of almost every saved game I have (even most of my XBox games). Definately worth the extra money for backup memory cards. :)

[optimusprime]

Right when Final Fantasy first came out for the NES, I was the first one of my friends to get it. After about 3 weeks of playing non-stop, I finally beat Tiamat and headed to the final dungeon in Garland's castle (where you warp back in time). One of my friends, Bob, was desperate to try the game out, so I let him borrow it for a few days, making him promise not to erase my game to start his own (remember, you could only save one game in Final Fantasy). Well, he erased my game, and started it over on his own. I managed to get back to that point again, and the damn battery went, so I was forced to start again. I never ended up finishing FFI. I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

[OutlawJT]

I have a doosy........Xbox harddrive died. Lost all my save files for all my box games. Most painful were the three levels my friend Andrew and I had spent 5 months beating on the hardest setting of Timesplitters 2 and my 150+ hour Morrowind gamesave! Beat that!!

[Kaijufan]

The worse save file loss I ever had happened to Final Fantasy IX, one of my very first PSX games(I had just bought a PS2, and never owned a PS1). Right when i was at the end of the game(just ready to enter the area where you have to press circle to enter) I was leveling up. My friend let me borrow FFVII, and I put FFIX on hold for awhile.
When I got to a certain point(a train graveyard I think) the screen turned all wierd colors, and when I got to a save point I found out all of my saves were gone(though I had a third party memory card).
I gave FFVII back, and bought a first party memory card. However, when I eventually got arround to buying FFVII the same thing happened in the same area, but I had all my saves backed up on my PS2 memory card.

[JohnnyDrama]

The only time I've lost game saves was when I was copying files from my Datel 16MB Memory Card Max. After the saves were copied, the card I was copying the files to (an official Sony card) became corrupt and unusable. Luckily I backed up some of the files on my PC via a Sharkport, but the others were gone. I had to format the card to use it again.

[Battousai1002]

final fantasy 6 - got everyone back in the world of ruin. only had the magic tower and kefka's place left.

DDRMAX - unlocked every song, AAed like 20 songs, Aed all of them except for Max 300. lost it all.

Kingdom Hearts - like 5ish hours into the game...not so bad.

[Mr. Anderson]

I've never had a really bad incident, and I have taken measures to make sure I don't. I keep a back up of every PS1 save I have on each of my PS2 memory cards, double for my 75+ hour FF7 save.

[CaptainObviousXl]

how about losing your memory card with 300 or so hours of Smash Bros. completed, Resident Evil played through several times and many out fits unlocked

I was so pissed, I was short only 20 trophies from having all of them
yea that happened to me and my ssb game. accept it was my fault i was tired and was erasing some old gamers and accedentaly erased my 400 hours plus sumper smash file yes i have no life :?

[digioverload]

Wow, I must be really lucky. I've never backed up anything and I've never lost a single save file, at least not on any consoles.

I did very recently start playing Super Mario 64 for the very first time on Nemu64 (an emu) since I never had an N64, and after getting my 24th star my star count suddenly dropped to 1 and I saved over my other save. I since started over in 1964 and I've gotten about 55 stars so far.

I never knew that it really could be so bad. I've since been backing up Final Fantasy VII. It must be so horrible to lose data after so long . . .

[MikeBosak]

FF Tactics Advance - 299 Missions completed. Went to start a new file in the 2nd slot, but didn't pay attention while saving.

Gran Turismo 3 - Only a few percent left to complete, memory card formatted itself. . . . I decided not to go through all of that again.

Secret of Mana - Got to the Mana Tree, battery died.

Chrono Cross (I think) - Power Outage while saving. More corrupted files!

Ace Combat 4 - Beat it, then the file got corrupted. I guess I got lucky :)

[magilacudy]

The only thing I can think of that resembles a save file loss was the opposite... I beat Soul Blade 100%. I lent my friend the game which he lent to someone else... who then lost it. To this day I haven't gotten it back. I still have the save file somewhere, but its useless without the game *shrugs*

Oh yeh, I upgraded my skater to almost 100% in every category in THUG for GBA when I was hit with this urge to buy an Xbox. So I traded in almost all my games with THUG included... I regret doing that, I hate how you can't backup GBA saves. Not only was the save file lost but the game as well.

[magilacudy]

Clearly the morals of this story are:

2) You guys suck at picking friends

What is it they say about that... that you can pick your nose but you can't pick your friends... :?

[uncbaseballfreak]

This is sorta like that- I had almost beaten the first max payne on xbox and I got to the part where you release the prisoner to help you get to teh biochem lab, but when i realeased him, the prisoner would just stand by the elevator and make no move at all. Pre-owned games w/blockbuster logos at gamestop absolutly suck.

[ksuwild25]

I had been playing Madden 2001 on my N64 while there was a lightning storm outside, and I was at the superbowl game with my team. I decided just to simulate that game with my team cuz i figured it would've been a blowout and I wanted to finish whatever season # that was in my franchise mode b4 the power went out. I simulated the game and clicked save franchise mode and realized while it was saving that my team lost so out of nowhere my hand flicks the off switch. Stupid mistake. I lost more than the superbowl that day, but I don't care since Madden 01 was the only game I owned then so I knew I would be back at it.

Another madden related file was how xbox's NCAA 2004's draft class was corrupted in xbox's Madden 2004 and wouldn't ever let me use my draft classes so I sold that game in frustration of not letting me draft my favorite college players, but this was the disks fault and I didn't feel like waiting 3 or 4 weeks. This was the only Madden I didn't own for lots of months let alone 1 or 2 weeks. Dang files.

[magus83]

Right when Final Fantasy first came out for the NES, I was the first one of my friends to get it. After about 3 weeks of playing non-stop, I finally beat Tiamat and headed to the final dungeon in Garland's castle (where you warp back in time). One of my friends, Bob, was desperate to try the game out, so I let him borrow it for a few days, making him promise not to erase my game to start his own (remember, you could only save one game in Final Fantasy). Well, he erased my game, and started it over on his own. I managed to get back to that point again, and the damn battery went, so I was forced to start again. I never ended up finishing FFI. I guess it just wasn't meant to be.

I had a simliar experience. I remember beating the game when I was like 8 or so and then a few years later I decided to start a new game. after getting up to to last temple where Chaos is, I decided to level up my characters. Then one day I turned on my NES only to find my save was gone! I was so pissed that I began the game again and somewhow I lost my data again upon reaching the final boss.


Also sometimes you have to wonder if a game crashes just to prevent from completing everything. Case in point, I did just about everything in Mario Rpg, and the only thing left to do was get the all 100 frog coins (i think) Upon getting the 100th coin, my game immediately crashed and all my saves I had were gone! Never did play the game again after that.

[x0thedeadzone0x]

Yes. I lost everything in my Dark CLoud 2 game on the final final boss, I put more then 100 hours into that game, you know, collecting every picture, every rare scoop, etc.
Then I turned on my PS2 to find it was... gone. :( Memory card corrupted. Also lost my FFX file, and many others. I'm still recovering slowly.

[PsyClerk]

I've lost save files, through one way or another, for FF IV three times. Each time I'll get very close to the end of the game. Each time, the data gets corrupted. This has happened twice on the SNES version, and once on the PSOne re-release. I've yet to see the end of that game.

The only other painful loss I can remember came from Shingen The Ruler on NES. It's a strategy game set in Japan, sort of like Nobunaga's Ambition. It's also one of the hardest games I've ever played in my life. I had started over repeatedly in this game but had eventually got to a point where I was doing surprisingly well. It was as if the planets had come into alignment, that's how good I was doing. My cousin came to visit and I decided to show him how well I had been doing on the game. Turns out that shortly before that, my brother, who was four at the time, decided he wanted to see what this video game business was all about, and had messed around on the game. Keep in mind this is NES...you have to hold in reset while turning the power off to save. Obviously, at four years old, he didn't do that. I turn on the game to boast about my progress...no save file. DOH!

[goldengraham]

FF VII, all characters at level 99, all ultimate weapons, Knights of the Round, a couple Master Materia, saved right outside the Emerald Weapon Battle. Friend comes over with his memory card, puts it in slot 2, begins to play and then save. Oops, saved in the wrong memory card slot, right over my file. From that day forward, I've learned two things, only 1 memory card in a system at a time, and save at least 2 files per RPG when possible.

[zenimann89]

i lost my saved memory data many times. the most important to me though were in donkey kong 64 (twice) and marvel vs. capcom 2 for dreamcast. i had unocked everything in the games for marvel vs. capcom two when my friend erased it by accident. argh! i felt kind of bad for my friend but worse for me. then after my parents interfered with who is allowed to play my n64 when i was about 6 (it was my first system that i knew existed), they allowed my 2 year old brother to play. i had gotten 189 out of 200! bannanas and my bro erased the game and he denied it and my parents didnt care, cause they are so out of this era. [my parents caused me so much depresiion with technology problems] then i decided to finally do al of donkey kong again and my bro erased it again! this time i was at 198 out of 200 freaking bannanas. now, i refuse to play the game again. the funniest thing is that my bro finally took "revenge" on himself, by accidentally erasing his game. he cried and cried forever,. so my parents gave him the nintendo and bought him about 10 games for it in those next 2 months. i hate him so much! but wtvr now i have a ps2 and xbox that he can't play, and a dreamcast.

[GuilewasNK]

My worst one was my save in Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. I had revealed 95% of the map and was at the last battle. I hadn't played it for months. When I came back my save was gone. :cry:

[EggViper]

lost my ff7 save files cause my bros thought i was done with it.... i was at the final boss!!!

[AlbinoNinja]

I lost Champions of Norrath around halfway through cuz my brother needed the memory. I could have replayed it, but it felt so damn tedious, as i knew just what weapons i would have gotten, and what the story would be like

[sblymnlcrymnl]

I've never lost a save, but I have saved in spots that were impossible to continue from due to glitches or quicksaving at the wrong fucking time.

[Ledhed]

When I was about 13, my little sister had a friend over. They asked me if they could play my Banjo-Kazooie file (as I had put 32 hours into it and had all the stages unlocked) and I said sure. Somehow, while trying to boot the save, her friend chose to erase the file instead of load it.

I was able to get to that same point in 16 hours when I replayed it, but I shouldn't have had to replay it in the first place. :evil:

[fireball343]

my ultramix, ddr file is corrupt, don't know what happend, everything is screwed up, doesn't credit me for grades i got, deletes them randomly, and say's i've beaten the entire challange mode,

sucks cuz i actually wanted to play the game, and i have at least 30 hours on there after having the game for 2 months

[Hunter55]

I sent my xbox in to be repaired (under warranty) and instead of fixing iot, they sent me a refurb. I was soo pissed when i found out. I lost everything on the harddrive

[the_deej]

ooh thats harsh

[evilpenguin9000]

My brother and I used to always save over each others files by accident. I think I did him on Record of Lodoss War for Dreamcast and he crushed my FFVIII save. He also nabbed me playing Balder's Gate for the PC.

More recently I saved over my FFTA game that had over 250 missions complete. Oh well, shit happens.

[Scorch]

The only problem I've had was with Riddick. I had put maybe six hours into it.. booted it up.. and the saved file on the HD was corrupt. Not sure why. I shrugged and started over and, sadly, beat it by the next day.

[dafoomie]

I lost my whole Xbox hard drive. Most of it wasn't so bad, but I had beaten Morrowind and done almost every little sidequest and had every good item, even brought one of the strippers into my stronghold... And now I have to beat the game again for GOTY just to play the expansions. I probably won't even bother.

[Zingela]

My memorable save losses:
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic -
About 33 hours in, VERY close to the end, we find out that my newly-purchased refurbished XBox is defective (XBox Live service was thinking it was modded, something wasn't put back together right ;P), and so we need to send it to MS for a fix. Was flat broke at the time. Couldn't afford a memory card. Good thing they provided the packaging/shipping costs, or I wouldnt have been able to send it back for a while, either.
That sucked.

Sonic Adventure 2 (DC) -
Was living with my older sister and my niece at the time. I'd finally gotten all 180 emblems in the game, and everything unlocked. Few weeks later, my niece decides to play with my VMU (which amazingly, had a working battery) when I'm out of the house. I come home to a VMU with an altered time setting and all of my files erased from it. >.>
Another big save from that VMU was one for PSO v2, a level 180 FOMarl with about 300 hours logged. It was my secondary character, but it still sucked pretty badly. :(

Pokémon Blue -
All 151 Pokemon, countless hours logged on the thing. Somewhere over or around 350. Legitimately-transfered Mew (Nintendo event). Just erased itself. Not too big of a deal, though, as later I won another Mew from a contest at TRU on a Black Friday many years ago. :P

A ton of others just from the carts being old and the batteries losing power. And a TON of corrupted PS1 memory cards (yes, official. never had luck with ANY PS1 card :(). But none of those were really too important.

[mousin]

i just lost all my marvel vs capcom 2 stuff. i was maxed level, everything. for the dreamcast. =[

[Medium_Pimpin]

Probably All my saved games on PC when my hard drive bit the dust a while back.

Games that i had saved:
WC3 - Was about to beat night elf campaign.
Freedom Fighters - Hard, at liberty island end.
Half Life 1/2 way thru and such a pain to do.
Halo

Nothing too major, but i have never beaten WC 3 or Half Life to this day.

[Theenternal]

A decent amount of ff7 due to a 3rd party mem card.

So I ended up having that card be only for ff7, i would save like 6 times to it during each save before i stopped the game. One time i had like 4 corrupt files :P. Anyways i got bored trying to max lvl my characters and with over 110+ hours. I forgot what I was done, because of like a 5 year gap of playing. Then I asked the story and ending here on CAG :P

[DigitalSpace]

My copy of Super Mario All-Stars for SNES used to erase my games on a random basis. I cleaned the cart one day and haven't had a problem since.

And I used to have a buggy non-GH copy of Gran Turismo 2 for Playstation that would randomly freeze while I was saving. The first time it happened, I had been playing the game for about a month and had no will to start a new game. A few months later, I started a new game and kept a backup file on my PS2 memory card. Then the game got lost somehow, which was a blessing in disguise because I replaced it with a non-buggy GH version.

[Magician]

Clearly the morals of this story are:

2) You guys suck at picking friends

What is it they say about that... that you can pick your nose but you can't pick your friends... :?

I think its "You can pick your friends. You can pick your nose. But you can't pick your friend's nose.

And to be on topic, I haven't lost a single save file yet, and I don't have back-ups of any of them. I guess I'm just lucky.

[coolsteel]

Worst for me was when I sold my old psx gameshark, and for some reason it completely skipped my mind that ALL of my psx saves were on it at the time. Out of the bunch of saves I regret losing Omega Boost simply because the game was hard as hell and FF7 because I had everyone maxed out .

Now I have my psx saves backed up on my ps2 card and in turn my ps2 saves backed up on another card .

[pianoman3284]

I had my FF X-2 data erased not once, not twice, but three times. Twice by my brother, once by a friend. I probably lost over 100 hours of game time. I made them buy their own memory cards.

[msdmoney]

I was playing Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy (gamecube) one night, about ready to fall asleep. I quit out of the game because it froze (first time I have had that happen). I went back to load the game up but the default is to start a new game. I clicked start a new game without realizing it...then clicked on my save....it asked me if it was okay to overwrite and I was too impatient and just kept hitting "A" without even realizing it. There went my save. It sucks because I was on the very last boss, and had put in ~15 hours.

I have been searching around the net for gamecube Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy gamesaves but haven't found any yet.

[Magician]

I was playing Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy (gamecube) one night, about ready to fall asleep. I quit out of the game because it froze (first time I have had that happen). I went back to load the game up but the default is to start a new game. I clicked start a new game without realizing it...then clicked on my save....it asked me if it was okay to overwrite and I was too impatient and just kept hitting "A" without even realizing it. There went my save. It sucks because I was on the very last boss, and had put in ~15 hours.

I have been searching around the net for gamecube Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy gamesaves but haven't found any yet.

If you have a Sharkport, try the saves on GameFAQs.

[wubb]

I was playing Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy (gamecube) one night, about ready to fall asleep. I quit out of the game because it froze (first time I have had that happen). I went back to load the game up but the default is to start a new game. I clicked start a new game without realizing it...then clicked on my save....it asked me if it was okay to overwrite and I was too impatient and just kept hitting "A" without even realizing it. There went my save. It sucks because I was on the very last boss, and had put in ~15 hours.

I have been searching around the net for gamecube Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy gamesaves but haven't found any yet.

Games that make 'New Game' (vs. Load or Continue) the default option annoy me. I mean you are going to choose 'New Game' one freaking time and then you'll choose 'Load Game' the next 100+ times after that. But many software developers don't put much effort into usability...

[PrinceNeil]

I play YuGiOh on my GBASP when I'm taking a #2. I usually spend a long time doing my business anyways, so what's another 15 minutes(around 30 mins. total). I also bring my laptop in there to surf.

[markadius]

I've got 2 Phantasy Star loses.

One happened earlier this week. After about 7-8 months of not playing, I boot up PSO on GC and it tells me my character is corrupt. 300 hours on one character, 90 on another and 75 on my fiancee's character all lost. :evil:
Somehow my PSO ep.III save on the same card is fine. :?

The other was back in the Genesis days when Phantasy Star II was brand new. Played through about 3/4's of the game and suddenly my save went bad. I guess I had more patience back then cuz I started right over and played until I beat it.

[p4r4d0x]

My Chrono Cross refused to save onto my PS2 memory card, so because I'm too cheap to get a memory card that would work, I have to play without dying a single time. On my third attempt I got halfway through, then died due to a pathetic encounter with some small, insignificant beastie.

I screamed.

[levi333]

About 200 hours of lost SSBM data. Accidently formatted the card to take Japanes saves, long story.

[GenDV138]

Worst for me was when I tried playing an online game of PSO V1 for DC, game froze up while I was going into a world and lost most of my items. Pissed me off enough to make me stop playing PSO for good.

[SadieDee]

I had some weird glitch in Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga where my game saved successfully but I was never able to progress past this one part because even though I completed an action it never triggered the event (I was in the town on Bean-Bean mountain and talked to the Hammerbros and jumped for them but the bridge was never completed outside. I think maybe I made Mario jump, saved, and then turned the game off without Luigi jumping).

But that was frustrating, luckily it wasn't that far into the game so I started over with no problems.

I bought Super Mario DX for the GBC and was playing it with Game Genie (or Shark?) The first time I started it without the using the GG, I noticed all the pictures in the album were deleted. Oh well.

Over Christmas break I was playing DDR over my friend's house and I left my memory card there. When I went back, they couldn't find it. Luckily I made a back up copy before I took it over.

When I was playing Broken Sword for the GBA, I got to this spot where I couldn't progress due to a game glitch (the priest kept polishing the chalice and wouldn't give it back). Luckily I saved a copy of an earlier file and then I started over from there. It wasn't that bad but I was pissed until I realized that I had backed it up.

[Kryian]

I think mine are kinda harsh...

For the longest time my PS2 memory card would just quit working after a few hours of playing a game. I let it go, as usually it would work again a few hours later. I guess finally it decided it had had enough, and decided to just not work anymore. The PS2 would freeze whenever it was started with the card in there. With that card I lost pretty much every PSX save I ever had, along with every PS2 save. Well over a thousand hours there. I've since been able to get that memory card operational, thanks to the buggy Viewtiful Joe 2 demo that formats cards.

Also, I decided to quit playing FFXI for WoW...and by the time i realized WoW isn't that fun and decided to go back to FFXI...character gone, a few hundred hours down the drain.

And just recently I had my secondary 120GB hard drive die on me, which contained pretty much anything of value on my computer.

And finally, one that wasn't really my loss but affected me anyway. My friend wiped his Cube memory card by flipping the import switch to play his imported copy of Wind Waker. We had a ton of Smash Bros. vs. data on there, along with Resident Evil and Metroid Prime files that were mine (because I didn't own a cube at the time).

Yep, I've not had the best of luck with stuff being saved.

[lionheart4life]

This brings back some old memories. When I was little and playing the original Legend of Zelda, I was at the last dungeon and had explored most of it, right before fighting Ganon. I go to start up the game one day, and all save data are gone. I was just a little kid at the time, so I'm not sure if I reset the system wrong one time and messed it all up or what. Even worse, my Nintendo crapped out on me before I could play through again, and I never got to beat that game until last year when I got the Zelda Collector's disk for Gamecube. Now that is sad.

[FriskyTanuki]

I've had to start over in FF7 a few times after getting off to good starts because of accidental overwriting from other games that don't go for open save blocks when you want to save.

Also, I've had a memory just stop working after I finished moving saves onto it and filling it up. It was full with the general games and Madden saves on it, which had rental saves for games which I have had to start over once I bought them since getting to CAG. Literally over a dozen or two saves just gone in a second, the memory card has been sitting in my car's storage compartment for well over a year and a half just waiting for me to take it to EB or GS.

[Darkside Hazuki]

I was transfering files from the Saturn's internal memory to the Gameshark I used as a backup for ALL my files (and for imports). Finished, got an error message, then it wiped ALL my data. So many saves (PDS, Nights, Guardian Heroes, Dragon Force, Legend of Oasis and a wicked high score on Robotron) were lost that day. It was a crushing blow.

[Mieah]

I was looking though the forum and I thought of my two times.

My first is happened when I bought my first playstaiton I bought a 15 page memory card and two years almost to the day later my memory card died.
It was over 200 hours of gaming on it and it all was gone. I would list everything that was on it but I really don't want to type that much.

My other gaming save file lose is from my GBA, I had a Final Fantasy Tactics Advance in it with almost 70 hours of game play on it and my friend who was also playing had almost 50 hours on it. Then my game boy was stolen.

[Ziv_Zulander]

How about losing over 150 hours of Disgaea gameplay? Or losing over 100 YEARS (gametime) in Monster Rancher? Worst part is, they both happened due to my stupidity. Oh and one time my Destiny Of An Emperor save battery died, 50+ hours all gone, threw the game in the trash after that.

[alongx]

You don't know loss until your PS2 memory card goes dead. I lost 40 hours of LaPucelle Tactics

[jeffreyjrose]

My worst save file loss was when I was 98% complete on Burnout 3 on my roommate's Xbox. He sent it off to Microsoft for some reason to get refurbished... and well, you can guess the rest. I traded BO3 away to GR so fast that I forgot about it... until I saw this topic, lol. :)

[Wet Ninja]

I was replaying Zelda: Link to the Past on the SNES this summer. I was most of the way through the game, with only two dungeons left when the game froze. I reset the SNES, and when it powered back up, all three saves files were gone.

It looks like I'll have to get the GBA version. On a related note, how does the GBA version of Link to the Past play compared to the SNES version, given that the screen has a lower resolution and that the GBA has two face buttons instead of four?

[Mieah]

For FF7 I had multiple saves I had one for just to have fun which had a stable full of S-class gold chocobos (I bred all of them) ruby and emerald weapon, over 10k gametickets, over 7 million gil, all games unlocked, all materia including master matteria, etc. I also had a save file before almost every movie in the game even the chocobo dance. A save before the last boss, and a few others.

For FF8 I had it saved in Ultimicias Castle

Saga Frontier I had it almost beat with three characters

I forgot the rest, but those were the ones I was most upset over

[Socheata]

I deleted my friend's save file of Final Fantasy X. He had 80+ hours logged on, and pretty much finished the whole game inside and out. I wasn't so mad as much as he was. :P

[ViolentLee]

I've been lucky, but there were two times I remember:

1) I bought a $20 guide for Discworld PSone back in '96 or '97, as the game was butt-ass hard. I ended up getting pretty far in it, then the file was corrupt. It took up about 14 blocks. I couldn't play anymore. I then sold the game/book together for $20. Seven years later, I paid $70 for the game off eBay. ::sigh::

2) I was deep into Final Fantasy 1 -- I'd say about 2/3 of the way, easy. My girlfriend showed interest. I said she could save over if she promised to play a while (there's only one file/cart). She played like an hour and never touched it again. Meanwhile, my game was bye-bye.

[cheapass Gundam]

bump

I don't think you want to bring this thread to the attention of past, present, and future CAGs who trade games with you... :wink:

[onikage]

Back when FF7 was new I lost several 40-50 hour saves. I was using a 3rd party memory card, one of those with 2 million pages. However, I loved the game enough to restart each time and eventually bought a Sony card. Other than that I've been lucky.

[manofpeace20]

The worst when when I was playing Zelda 2 on the original Nintendo. I was at the final level, saved it, and stopped playing. I came back to play and the game cartridge crapped out with typical NES fashion. I got it working, and all the save files were deleted.

Honorable mention:

Losing 7 years of a Madden franchise
Super Punch Out file deleted
Having to replay the first level of Resident Evil Zero again (frustrating game)

[ElfAngel7]

lost my GC memory card w/ Zelda, Mario Sunshine, Metriod, Smash Bros., and Skies of Arcadia on it. I had finished them all accept Smash Bros., but i had put alot of effort on them and perfered to have memory of they're domination. Now I keep the huge memory card that Nintendo came out w/ in my cube at all times and one that i take out with me when i go out.

The worst was when I had a near completed FF7 file w/ all the ultimate materia AND an additional mastered Knights of the Round. My friend was fookin around, and accidently saved over it. I literally cried (you would too after spending 115 hours of your summer on it) and slammed my fist into his stomach. We're still close friends, but I'm still a little bitter over it

[tdphillips]

Final Fantasy 7, accidentally deleted a save that I had right at Sephiroth. ](*,)

[ananag112]

My sister got mad at me once and pulled out my copy of Super Mario All-Stars while I was playing it on my SNES. I snatched it from her and checked if it worked, it did, but all my save files were gone :(. I was so sad.

[daphatty]

I can't believe this thread is still alive! I started this over a year ago!

[GuilewasNK]

IT LIVES!!! Muwahahahaha!!! :lol:

Sad, yet interesting tales here....

[RBM]

It's the thread that keeps on giving. Speaking of which, I just encountered a delayed response to a memory card getting corrupted: Gran Turismo 4 told me (that's right, it spoke to me..it's alive, Jim) that I could transfer liscenses from my GT3 savegame file(s)! I cheered! (and I hadn't read anything about GT4, so I didn't know this would be possible.) ..then, it also told me I could transfer MONEY from my old savegame! I cheered louder!! then, it read the memory card in my second slot and told me it had no licenses and no money! ...because it was a barely started savegame I half-heartedly started after losing my original file! :(
waaaaahahahahaha nooooooooo *sob*

[starboyk]

Back on PS1, had Parastie Eve beaten with full marks once through. Also had Star Ocean : SS right before the final boss.

Power surge in the house wiped the card clean as I sat there.

(woot, 100 posts!)
-K

[DuelLadyS]

Way back when I first got FF7. It was my first RPG, so it took me over 20 hours just to get out of Midgar. When I did and realized there was this whole world I'd get to explore, I was trilled out of my mind! Then my brother wanted to try, so I reset and let him start a game. He saved over mine at the first save point. I went upstairs and cried for a good 20 minutes.

#2 is my boyfriend's recent loss- his PS2 card corrupted. He basically lost all data for every game he's owned since he bought the PS2 back when they released, save for a couple files on a backup card. To add insult to injury, he'd moved some old PSone files to that card for storage, so he lost a bunch of those too. he was the most upset over the Front Mission 4 fie.

[Aaron]

The last time I lost something that precious was my Baseball Stars league for NES. My brother, two friends and myself all had teams on that cartridge, with a season about to get underway. We would take turns borrowing it so that we could all work on our teams, and the last guy took it home. His sister erased it all.
What sucked is that we couldn't kick his sister's tail feathers, and it wasn't really our friend's fault either since she stole it and played it while he was gone. Damn. That's depressing.
I'm going to email him about it and curse him now.

[dastly75]

Well maybe not my worst but most recent, losing all my save data for HL2. Damn you steam!!!!!!

[BustaUppa]

I was replaying Zelda: Link to the Past on the SNES this summer. I was most of the way through the game, with only two dungeons left when the game froze. I reset the SNES, and when it powered back up, all three saves files were gone. Oh man, that game erased my save file like three or four times. Finally I just started copying the game to all three slots, EVERY time I played. Usually I would turn the game to find one or two of the files erased. I kept playing the game like this until I finally beat it... but man I still held my breath every time I turned it on... I kept hoping this wouldn't be the one time it erased all three slots.

Some of those old cartridges were terrible, I'm so glad we've got memory cards and hard drives now. Those will crap out too, but not nearly as frequently as the old cartridges did.

Oh, and once I copied over my friend's Smackdown: Shut Your Mouth PS2 file. The save system in that game was confusing as hell, so when I tried to copy created wrestlers over I ended up copying over the whole file without even realizing it. Luckily the seasons in that game are pretty short, so he didn't even really care... he was more stoked about all the wrestlers I made. I was so nervous about how he would react; I thought he would feel like I betrayed him or something. "I entrust you with my memory card and THIS is what I get in return?"

I had this X-Port device that lets you transfer PS2 saves to a PC, but unfortunately the new PS2 model won't read the disc. I'll have to write the company and see if they've updated it, because I realize how fragile some of this stuff is.

[Danil ACE]

Shadow of the Colossus- Stupid me saved over the save file slot with another game. Luckly, while not the same, because my stats were more advanced at ealier stages, I copied the data from a friends card because together we played on a different save file. So while not the same, I played a lot on the other one too. :(

The Matrix: Path of Neo- Started game up one day to show someone a cool scene, but save slot was reset to 0% complete. Not sure to this day how it happened. The person beat the game afterwards, so I got the data "kinda" back, but with less unlocked secret content and on an easier difficulty. :(

[Yoohoo1231]

Every save of this entire generation. Period.

Somebody broke into my house one day and stole my PS2, GC, and Xbox (with memory cards all in them) so I had lost all my saves. 600+ hours of PSO, about 300 of Morrowind, Smash Bros. GTA's, Zelda's, everything.
When he broke in the second time (in which I was home) I managed to catch him, all that we recovered in working order was the Xbox (which is still being held as evidence 16 months later.)
Sad thing was I recognized all my memory cards at a pawn shop but they couldn't claim them because I couldn't physically prove they were mine.

[Graystone]

Only a few things I can think of, playing Syphon fliter getting to the last boss, quiting for the night. Only to find in the morning that you haven't saved the game since the 2nd level.

Also I was playing RE3 for about 12 hours straight when my cousin tripped over the power cord.

[ViolentLee]

This thread is so old, I actually forgot I ever posted my own save loss stories. I saw mine a page or two back and was like, "Did I write that?"

[CoffeeEdge]

Gauntlet Legends on N64, me and my brother and a friend were doing the campaign co-op. All of us are about level 90, and nearing the end of the game. Boom, save gone.

Red warrior is about to die, indeed.

[Pc Lynet]

This thread brings back bad memories. My sister and me had come a long way on completing(Not to mention my ingenious car designs :) ) Lego Racers for N64. It used the little memory card in the controls. One day when we tuned the game one all the saves where lost. My sister and me both started crying. I remember my mum asking me what is wrong, but I couldn't speak. A bit sad but also funny to think of this today.

My sister also deleted her SSBM save with over 1000 vs battles :bomb:

[VAD3R or Fro]

It would most likely be my DDR saves. They have all the scores and unlocked songs that took forever to get.

[seanr1221]

In Saint's Row I had finished the Carnales levels and was near the end of the Rollers. My roomate was playing his character, and he went and saved it and handed me the controller. Without even thinking, I thought I was on the load screen, and over-wrote my saved file :-(

I started a new file, and even made my guy look like Chuck Norris, but I still havn't gotten back into that "mood" to play it again.

[Spades22]

Hmm lets see...first one ever was Donkey Kong 64. I had basically everything in the game then it was deleted. I think I was maybe 40 hours in?

The next one is for Gamecube. I had about 4 years of saved files on it, including almost every trophy and every char in smash bros melee, like 5 shines left in Mario Sunshine, beat Luigis Mansion about 10 times gold in everything, Paper Mario beaten, Super Monkey Ball everything unlocked every bonus map completed and hard mode etc, Pikmin 2 I had every pink flower in challenge mode and everything available in that game, Beat Viewtiful Joe (Found that game boring too so I cant beat it again), everything in Mario Party 4 and 5(all the minigames and most of the presents), umm everything in Crash Wrath of Cortex, oh and I Was working my way to 100% in Tales of Symphonia. All this was deleted in 1 day, man I Was ticked off but I got over it pretty fast.

[evanft]

This is why I never let anyone else touch my memory cards or leave power chords hanging around, except when I'm playing Guitar Hero.

[Supreme]

The one that affected me the most has to be when my little step brother erased most of my saves on my PS2 memory card. The worst one was my Max Payne file. I was in Part III, and a few chapters in, so the ending was near. It was hard holding myself back and not beating him into a coma.

[Mattte]

Recently I ran into a glitch in Prince of Persia where I can't get any further in the game. I was by a bridge type thing and the girl that you follow around and stuff was out over the pit just floating there, didn't really think much of it. Get to the next room and save it, after I save it, it says she died and now I'm stuck in a loop whenever I load it she dies.

Back in the day I was curious about the "DO NOT REMOVE CATRIDGE WHILE GAME IS ON" warning so I tried it.....with Earthbound, erased all the saves on the cart. Worst part it was a friend of a friends game.

[RegalSin2020]

My Pokemon Gold after finding out that everybody elses carts just powered down.

I lost my 411 Special DEF Blastiose. Alon with others such as my Steelix and
all those hours spent wasted down the drain.

Thats it the ultimate game file loss.

[jshendel]

Lost everything on Soul Calibur for Dreamcast when my VMU corrupted

WAH!!

[PR Mega X]

Man, these stories make me glad I don't play RPGs...

Mine is from last year, in my dorm. I had been playing between a game in my GC and one in my PS2. Transformers for PS2, I was a decent way into it, woke up one morning to turn it on...save file was corrupted, had to be deleted. Annoyed, but not enraged, I decided to switch over to the GameCube, in which I had been playing Mega Man Anniversary Collection.

I had beaten MM1-7, and was on the first stage of Wily's Castle in MM8 (fucking hoverboard). So, I turn on the game.......data file corrupted. That was when the rage kicked in. I IMed my roommate, who had been watching me play Mega Man, who responded with "You know, I'm starting to think there is a God, and that he hates you." I wept inside and passworded my way back to victory.

[Kapwanil]

Lost From PS2 Memory Card Failure (Go 1st Party!):

Suikoden 3: 140 Hour Save (100% Complete w/ Special, Hugo-Based)
Suikoden 3: 70 Hour Save (75% Complete, Geddoe-Based)
Suikoden 3: 65 Hour Save (70 % Complete, Chris-Based)
Disgaea: 330 Hour Save (100% Complete, Laharl and Etna with 3 Maxed SR Suits and Maxed Yoshitsunas apiece)
Time Crisis 2: 30 Hours (Everything Unlocked)
Time Crisis 3: 30 Hours (Everything Unlocked)
Crisis Zone: 25 Hours (90% Unlocked)
Dark Cloud: 60 Hours (70% Finished)
Dark Cloud 2: 110 Hours (80% Finished, Many Bonuses Unlocked, Weapons Far Too Powerful for Current Areas)
Virtua Fighter 4: Lost 5 Good AIs
R-Type Final: Lost Complete Hangar...boo.
Dynasty Warriors 3: Lost Maxed Out Game
Xenosaga: Don't Ask

...and that was only part of the card. It was very painful to shrug and just do a reformat but it had to be done. Goodbye, long-lost hours...

[Darkside Hazuki]

Lost From PS2 Memory Card Failure (Go 1st Party!):

Suikoden 3: 140 Hour Save (100% Complete w/ Special, Hugo-Based)
Suikoden 3: 70 Hour Save (75% Complete, Geddoe-Based)
Suikoden 3: 65 Hour Save (70 % Complete, Chris-Based)
Disgaea: 330 Hour Save (100% Complete, Laharl and Etna with 3 Maxed SR Suits and Maxed Yoshitsunas apiece)
Time Crisis 2: 30 Hours (Everything Unlocked)
Time Crisis 3: 30 Hours (Everything Unlocked)
Crisis Zone: 25 Hours (90% Unlocked)
Dark Cloud: 60 Hours (70% Finished)
Dark Cloud 2: 110 Hours (80% Finished, Many Bonuses Unlocked, Weapons Far Too Powerful for Current Areas)
Virtua Fighter 4: Lost 5 Good AIs
R-Type Final: Lost Complete Hangar...boo.
Dynasty Warriors 3: Lost Maxed Out Game
Xenosaga: Don't Ask

...and that was only part of the card. It was very painful to shrug and just do a reformat but it had to be done. Goodbye, long-lost hours...

You win!

I had a similar experience when my Saturn battery died and the GameShark I was using for back-up crashed as I was restoring the internal memory. Every game I'd ever played...Mystaria, Guardian Heroes, PD Zwei, etc...gone.

[MadFlava]

Lets see, worst one in recent memory was I complete finished SSX tricky and realize I had two saves on both of my memory cards. I thought they were the same so I erased the one on my #1 memory card. Stupid me, that one had everything completed and the backup was when I saved it with only half of the stuff done. Anyway, I grind through the game again over two days and opened everything up again.

After that experience and other horrible game save erases, I invested in an X-Port and now I back up my saves on a regular basis to my laptop. Best fucking investment I have made to keep my gaming sanity.

[lordwow]

I think I blocked these out of my memory.

I'm sure that it's happened, I remember the infamous "You didn't save your brand new game on File A RIGHT?" conversations with my younger brother growing up... but for the life of me... can't remember an example.

[lokizz]

FF7 i was at th underwater submarine level where you fight that emerald robot and one day i decided to do some memory card cleaning and erased the wrong FF file and lost that save point. i was so pissed off by it i quit playing the game and never beat it.

[GF_Eric]

Perfect Dark on the N64. I was a few months into trying to earn the 1-Perfect ranking in multiplayer and my memory card went to crap. I think I had a 7 ranking at the time and I never recovered after that.

[Supercake]

I remember a storm killing my FF4 save on Snes, at then end, while I was playing too. Man I cried good after that! I also had a FF6 Snes save where I did the uber Relm Glitch. Keep in mind I had no idea of what I had done, so it was amazing to have my characters all with Ragnaroks and every spell. I don't remeber what happened to that save, but I know I deleted it one day, damn that was dumb of me.

My absolute worst save loss is my Silent Hill 3 file corrupting. I had that file since SH3's launch, and loseing it was a huge personal blow for me...very sentimental and it's been gone for about 2 years, still pissed about it. 2nd would be Legend of Mana 75+ hours in. I think I just got rid of it via dexdrive without thinking. God I spent a whole night just blacksmithing.

[Spades22]

Well the first time I lost something important (DK64) I was so ticked off at my "friend" more like familys friends son, since they annoyed the crap out of me, that I was yelling at him calling him names and my parents had to drag me to the bathroom LOL. But I was like in grade 5 then...

Then when I lost 5 years of saved GC files, I kinda shrugged it off in a day or 2. I think games mean much less to me now, I can't seem to get into them like I used to.

[tangytangerine]

This happened a few months ago.

Losing my save from Zelda: Link to the Past(SNES). I know spent about 30-40 hours last year on that game getting everything. Then going back this year to find out the battery died. I know I cussed for five minutes cause of that(and my neighbors probably heard it).

[suffah]

My friend's 10 yr-old sister's original gameboy. Had a bazillion hours logged into Pokemon. I didn't realize that back then, when it says "Are you sure you want to start a new game, will overwrite existing game" it meant that literally. I figured there were multiple games saves. Anyways, to cut a long story short...

I played for 5-10 mins and turned it off. A couple hours later I hear her crying her lungs out. She comes into his room with the GB in her hand and just crying really loud. I realize what happened and I feel incredibly bad. Her brother (my friend) is just sitting there playing EverQuest. She keeps crying, I feel like shit, not sure what to do, when finally he turns towards her and yells "SHUT THE FUCK UP SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" LoL what a bastard.