Tell us your game data loss stories

[LoneSage]

i remember playing Pokemon Yellow in one of my Math classes and the teacher took it out of my hands, looked at it for a few minutes trying to figure out how to shut it off and he came to the conclusion that you did so by just pulling the cartridge out

i think i had like 60+ hours in that game

I have no sympathy for you. You wasted his time and the class's.

 

[ferrarimanf355]

My favorite story like this is when I collected all the keys in San Francisco Rush for the N64 and got the Formula 1 car. The save was corrupted, so I had to collect all the keys again. And I did.

 

[SNKorSWM]

Happened in Star Ocean SFC. Entered a battle in the bonus dungeon and the game freezes, and when I tried to reload the save files, they were gone. Heard that was a pretty common glitch though, not too pissed since I've already reached the ending.

With the PS and PS2? Never. Thanks to DexDrive and MaxDrive, the days of buying more memory cards because I didn't want to get rid of existing save files are finally over. With these drives the save files can be backed up as hard copy on CD-Rs. Even the SNES/SFC save files can be backed up with those Magic Copiers such as Super Disk, a godsent for carts with dying batteries.

 

[SouthtownKid]

Most of my data loss stories involve short term memory.

 

[Moon Jump]

My worst one has to be the first Pokemon on the Gameboy. One day I turned it on and got an error message and everything on the cart was gone. I don't know if it was because I had a house fire and maybe something got damaged, but I always treat my games well so I don't know if it's just because I played it to death. I had to go out and buy another copy because even after I started another game from scratch the data would only sometimes save.

I also had a problem with a used cart of Excitebike 64. I asked for it for Christmas and my parents got me a used copy from Gamestop. I think I was able to clear three or four tracks and the data would vanish right off the cart. I still have the cart, not sure why I never tried to get it refunded. I think that was the year I also got WWF No Mercy so most of my time was taken up by that.

 

[Ami Tajiri]

I nearly lost a Grandia II save on Dreamcast a while ago. I was saving my game, and the controller suddenly flipped out and kept moving the cursor and pressing the enter button simultaneously. I was just about to enter the final dungeon at that point. I reset the system and looked at the save, and it was corrupted. Fortunately, I had JUST started keeping a back-up save on the second memory card because I was so close to the end of the game. I only lost about twenty minutes of gameplay in total.

My Kirby Super Star cartridge is infamous for losing saves. I must've had to restart the game umpteen times by now, including one time where I was right around the end of Milky Way Wishes.

 

[ki_atsushi]

Happened in Star Ocean SFC. Entered a battle in the bonus dungeon and the game freezes, and when I tried to reload the save files, they were gone. Heard that was a pretty common glitch though, not too pissed since I've already reached the ending.

With the PS and PS2? Never. Thanks to DexDrive and MaxDrive, the days of buying more memory cards because I didn't want to get rid of existing save files are finally over. With these drives the save files can be backed up as hard copy on CD-Rs. Even the SNES/SFC save files can be backed up with those Magic Copiers such as Super Disk, a godsent for carts with dying batteries.

Yeah, I've noticed that Star Ocean is really glitchy. I've had the game crash numerous time during battles, especially in the coliseum.

 

[hoop-jones]

After 27,5 hours of playing Final Fantasy 7 on PSX my cheap 3rd party memory card refused to load the save data. I never touched the game again, threw away the card and never bought anything but original accessories.

Even good 10 years later this still pisses me off!

 

[SNKNostalgia]

Lost my FF III data due to the tabs on my SNES being cut out to play my JP Front Mission Gun Hazard. The US carts ended up being a little loose when inserted and it corrupted the data. Afterward, I actually had to purposely put it in backwards, wiggle it, etc... to wipe out the cart save data so the game would start a new game. My newer SNES is unmodified for this fear and I don't like hacking up game systems up like that.

The Shinobi PS2 save thing happened to me as well, stupid bullshit.

Played many Saturn games to find out after turning it off or starting an old save the internal battery is dead. In one case, I had completed 4 games on Dragon Force. Jesus Christ I was annoyed. Now I know better and test it out before starting a new game. If it is dead, then off to Radio Shack to blow $5 on a CR2032 if I remember correctly. I found it is best to remove the battery (same with Dreamcast VMU, but it still keeps saves) when you aren't playing your system. Just back-up data on your 4 in 1 Action Replay. The system tends to suck the juice out of it in 2-3 years.

I haven't had much bad luck with anything else really.

 

[SouthtownKid]

Lost my FF III data due to the tabs on my SNES being cut out to play my JP Front Mission Gun Hazard. The US carts ended up being a little loose when inserted and it corrupted the data. Afterward, I actually had to purposely put it in backwards, wiggle it, etc... to wipe out the cart save data so the game would start a new game. My newer SNES is unmodified for this fear and I don't like hacking up game systems up like that.

Those little honeybee adapters were like $7. You must still be able to find them around. I see one on ebay right now for $8 and no bids. Just get one of those. I never understood why people were cutting things on their SNES.

 

[Comrade Porn King Mikhail]

Some of my best memories from rediscovering the SNES were from playing it again my freshman year in college. Finally picked up a Final Fantasy II and put about 20 hours into it over the course of a couple of days. Got to the Moon at about 2AM one day, went to bed determined to finish it the next day only to find a corrupted save file in the morning.

I've never played the game since. I'd rather just pop in FFIII, but then I never have any motivation for JRPGS.

 

[SNKNostalgia]

Those little honeybee adapters were like $7. You must still be able to find them around. I see one on ebay right now for $8 and no bids. Just get one of those. I never understood why people were cutting things on their SNES.

Well this was back in 1996-97 and I was a broke ass kid without knowing any better.

I just quit playing it ever since my old system died and I replaced it in 2006. I figured what is the point in looking into it for 1 Super Fami game I own. For a while there is a translated rom for it that I have played through a couple times with my laptop hooked to a CRT. I may get the new SNES Compact Flash Rom cart so I can both use real hardware and enjoy it in English. There are some other translations I would like to enjoy as well.

 

[A1Guy]

When my g/f son deleted my GTA4 game save!

 

[SNKorSWM]

Sounds more like the Goro stomp in Mortal Kombat than anything in GTA.

 

[Zero Satori]

Those little honeybee adapters were like $7... Just get one of those. I never understood why people were cutting things on their SNES.

Back in the day, I actually just "modded" the tabs on my Game Genie as an alternative to damaging my SNES. But after a while, I honestly got so tired of having to go through the boot screens and everything that I just hacked the system itself. Impatience?--Hell yeah, but then again, I'd never experienced anything like SNKNostalgia said with the American games being shaky after tab-removal.