Have you ever gotten a game into an unwinnable/unfinishable state?

[F'Angus]

Once saved Oddworld when falling off a cliff... that was stupid.. (

 

[LordDarkPhantom]

Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring (PS2), where I reached a mission where I had to escape from the Nazgul, who, once they detected you, would make you lose the game instantly. Well I heard a Nazgul approaching me so I decided that this would be a good moment to save. However, I had misjudged the distance between the Nazgul and me (Frodo), and the moment I finished saving, the Nazgul detected me and I lost.

Never mind, I thought, I'll just reload. But the very instant I reloaded, I lost the game and had to reload. Yeah, you can see where this is going. I tried everything (distractions, turning away), but nothing worked so I had to restart.

tl:dr? Saved over my only load and lost the very instant I loaded the save. Poo.

 

[DSK-]

Sort of. In ME2 I chose for my Vanguard the sniper rifle talent...which ended up removing my heavy weapon. At the time I was playing on Insanity and well...those heavy weapons sure do come in handy on that difficulty. So I basically deleted that after getting tired of playing and changed difficulty and kept my heavy weapons.

 

[noble cookie]

-snip-

snip

Pretty much that, I didn't understand the junction system fully when I was a kid, so I got to the first fight with Raijin and Fujin and got my ass handed to me multiple times.

Decided to start over about half a year ago and finished the game within a month, and after figuring out the junction system I actually like it despite what everyone says about it.

 

[KingKamor]

The first time I played Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, I did it on Normal mode. I had lost a few people because I just ceased to care after the final 5-part chapter began, and I wanted to get all of my favorite units to level 20/20/20 before getting to the final boss. Everyone had the best weapons, maxed-out stats, and I felt pumped when we all stepped into the final boss chamber.

The final boss has an AOE attack that can potentially kill any squishy caster within a range of 10 squares. My best melee had no chance against her, since you have to destroy a set of nine auras that are placed in every square around the boss, which spew back an equal amount of magic damage if they, themselves, are damaged.

I gave up and started a new playthrough on Easy when only three characters were left.

 

[Magnalian]

Megaman Battle Network 2, I managed to save right in between two mandatory fights, with very little HP left and no way to restore it. Had to restart the whole damn game.

 

[thatguy1]

Kingdom hearts: chain of memories on GBA: I put too many points in health and not enough into cards. Marluxia destroyed me within seconds, making it impossible to finally beat the game.

 

[ruben6f]

Well, in Oblivion, I joined the Dark Brotherhood, I got a bow, some arrows and killed everyone in the game that was killable, I couldn't complete the thieves guild because all the poor homeless were drowning in a pool of their own blood.

 

[AngloDoom]

In Prince of Persia - Warrior Within I wandered off of the path I should have been headed, fell to what should have been my death at the bottom of a giant clock-tower-thing but my Prince somehow survive the fall. I tried to climb back up to escape, but the platform just in front of the final ledge was, for some reason, just a texture. The Price would either fall right through it, or get stuck for a few seconds, take hideous damage, and then fly into the far wall and die.

I have no idea how going off of the trodden path can screw a game so much.

 

[Dragoon]

During the tutorial level of Deus Ex (the original), you are supposed to practice with the sniper rifle. I accidentally hit my keyboard, resulting in the character throwing the sniper rifle into the firing range.

Which you can't access.

I snapped. Kinda feel like that glitch cost me a good game, but that tutorial is too long to bother doing again.

I did that twice in a row and just ended up skipping the tutorial in the end. Took me a few minutes messing around to teach me how to play it xD

 

[AMAZED]

I was playing halo reach and the game made a checkpoint literally 1 second before a wraith bomb came down and destroyed me

 

[Adamc-mh]

Decided to pick up Fallout Two a while ago just to see if I was missing anything got to Vic then I was asked for 1000 caps to the slaver for his freedom and I realised that I was getting zero enjoyment out of the game and I finally found a game bar Fable 3 that I will never ever complete because I hate it with a fiery passion

 

[funguy2121]

What I mean is, have you ever played a game for a while and ended up doing something like:
- In an RPG, built a character that could not progress past a certain point (e.g. too weak in combat and you found yourself up against a powerful enemy you couldn't avoid)
- Lost an item that was required to pass a certain point
- Killed an NPC you shouldn't have, without realising fast enough to load a saved game

etc


The following happened to me, with the end part being tonight:
1. I was on the home stretch of an RPG called Arx Fatalis that I'd been thoroughly enjoying for the past week or so. About halfway through the 20ish hour game, I came across a few "Akbaa rocks". They took up a few slots in my inventory and when I went to a store, they weren't worth enough to even both selling.

2. After I'd kept them for a couple of hours and found no use for them in the temple in which I found them, I dropped one of them to make room for more items. Didn't even sell it, just dropped it on the ground. Nothing is marked as a "quest item" or anything in this game.

3. 10 hours later, I get to the door leading to the final boss. I have 4 of these rocks (picked up some more in the final ara). I need 5 to open the door. There are only 5 in the game. FML. I desperately tried to figure out where the hell I might have left this thing.

4. I ended up backtracking over a couple of areas for about an hour and a half before I finally saw rock #5 sitting on top of a rock in a crypt, in what was an amazing piece of luck. I was just getting to the point of "fuck it, I have to just watch the end on youtube".

So thanks to object persistence in the world, I didn't get quite find myself with an unfinishable playthrough. But I'm sure some of you have had such a thing. Older games are probably the likely culprits. Share your stories.

Played an early version of the Gamecube Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, and saved after entering the last leg of the Jeruselum area. A glitch in the game makes the final portion of the level impossible to exit (by entering the elevator) about 80% of the time.

 

[Akihiko]

Yeah, Final Fantasy VIII. Ended up in some sort of tower chasing after damsel in distress, unbeknownst to me, once past a certain point in the tower, you can't go back and at the end is a massive boss fight that involves the boss having partially absorbed afor mentioned damsel in distress and keeps draining her for health and if you do area of effect attacks you'll hit her as well, which happened to also be the basis of my play strategy so my regular attacks were piss weak. Oh did I mention this boss liked to spam really powerful attack spells that did massive damage to my entire party? No? Well it does that too. So yeah, I can't get out of this tower, the last save point used was beyond the point of no return, so I can't leave to seek better weapons or anything, and I have no earlier save to go back to. So I finally got fed up with it and said "fuck this!"

EDIT: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention if the damsel dies during the boss fight it's instant game over.

Yep. Same story. EXCEPT I only leveled up Squall, Zell and the damsel in distress. Meaning I had a level 18 in my party. I could boost his health using junction, but he was still a dead weight.

 

[Liquid Paradox]

Two right off the top of me head:

Half Life : Accidentally hit auto save button seconds before hitting the bottom of an elevator shaft after a fall. Up to this point, I had been exclusively using the auto save to save my game. never made that mistake again.

Resident evil: the third one :yeah... honestly can't remember what it was called... was it just Nemesis? Whatever, not important. Basically, ran into Nemesis in a newspaper press, I think, chose to fight him. Well, I couldn't beat him, so I opted to run away. Did some stuff, whatever, went to an old safe room, and saved over my only file. Walked out of safe room, Nemesis is standing right outside and kills me instantly. Reload. Same thing happens. Again. And. Again. No other path to that area of the city except through that "safe" room. Game is no longer beatable.

 

[Daimon117]

Dark Chronicle. First level's easy till Second level pops around in the woods after your train breaks down. After that it is pretty much impossible to carry on without being killed by everything.

 

[kommando367]

Borderlands

A glitch caused the Destroyer not to spawn.

 

[EightGaugeHippo]

Morrowind...
I Killed the Dwemer
No way around it

Usually if you kill someone essential to the main quest, you get a message that breaks the fourth wall, telling you to either reload a save or the world is pretty much fucked thanks to you

But there is a way around it

Spoiler

If you kill someone essential, you can still beat the game by killing Vivec, then looting the wraith guard from his corpse.
Then take it to the last living Dwemer in the Corprusarium to reactivate it...
Then completing the game "normally"
No one tells you that you can do this in game, and it is alot more difficult.
By killing the Dwemer, I screwed over both ways to complete the game, as he is essential in both paths.

Luckily, I had a save to reload.
Unluckily, It was 3 hours previous...

 

[ImperialSunlight]

I messed up with the silver keys in Legend of Zelda OoT. Damn you, water temple! Damn you to hell!

 

[Mettking]

Final Fantasy 4 DS, level 40 and just beat the archfiends rematch. Go into the CPU and get party wiped by its opening attack...before I can do anything.