Most devastating loss of a save file

[Ando85]

I've done this topic before, but it has been well over a year. It got a good amount of responses so here we go.

Save files get corrupted, memory cards get lost, little brothers overwrite your save files. What is the most devastating loss you have experienced?

 

[IndomitableSam]

What game was it? ... Star Ocean 2? FF7? FF Tactics? I know it displayed all the character headshots (or characters a la Star Ocean) in a row on the save file graphic... Something like that, but a 70+ hour save file got corrupted once on my Playstation. It was awful. Just the one file, not the card, though. Whatever it was, it was incredibly frustrating and I probably didn't play the game again for a year or more.

Ever since then, it's a habit to make and carry on 2 saves of my game. I usually alternate save files when playing and make sure there's an empty save file between them, too, so I don't accidentally save over one (or both).

 

[Eclipse Dragon]

I lost all the save data on my PS3,
Final Fantasy 13, Oblivion, Dragon Age, Uncharted 1 and 2, Borderlands, and half a dozen RPGs from the PS2 era.

 

[Norrdicus]

Budokai 3...

I had unlocked everything, but my save file got corrupted at some point

 

[WoW Killer]

XCOM: Terror from the Deep. There was some bug in the PSX version that made corrupted save files really common. Like really common. But only usually after you'd put about 50 hours into it. Never did finish that game.

 

[Mikejames]

Banjo Kazooie, I was determined to finish it. I was on one of the last levels and wiped it

I was just about to say this... So much childhood buildup, finally loading up my save for the final battle when my friend accidentally hit the button to overwrite it. There was no "Are you sure?" about it....

 

[RipRoaringWaterfowl]

I may have lost a great Civilization III save on my old computer that I've stored away. Don't know for sure, though.

 

[krazykidd]

Golden eye 007. beat the entire game on 00 agent . Go that new mode where you can adjust damage health accuracy all a bunch of other things . Friend though it would be funny to erase them . Not friends anymore .

 

[Fappy]

I had one Oblivion save corrupt my Gamertag a few years ago. Lost all of my saves on everything. Thank God I only had my Xbox for a few months at that point.

 

[EeveeElectro]

When my first PS3 was nicked, I was more gutted I had to get everything back on my games ;( Still had all the trophies but all my scores and stuff... splumfth.

 

[LetalisK]

This might not count as a save game loss, but I count it since it had the exact same impact.

Playing Dragon Age Origins. Doing all the little side quests, trying to make all the choices so I get the ending I want. I defeat the last boss and...glitch fest. No cutscene, no sound, just mother fucking subtitles. Didn't matter how much I reloaded, I literally could not finish the game. I don't know if it's an install error or if the save was corrupted somehow, but I was so fucking pissed. It's because of that I haven't played Dragon Age 2 yet.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Pretty much these two-

Phantasy Star Online (Gamecube). I lost my first save file due to file corruption. Sure I was pissed at first but in I replay the game and actually suceed better than my erase file. The second time round I had better loots and stats.

TimeSplitter 3. My idiot brother shut the game when it was saving while I was in High School. Sure I redid it again but it was more of a struggle compared to Phantasy Star Online. It tool me bloody ages to get my prefered multiplayer character since to get him I had to win against five chimps which we all have rocket launcher! It was NOT easy!

 

[ToastiestZombie]

Wind Waker. I had finally done the boring-ass triforce stuff (worst part of one of my favourite games) and had gotten to the start of the final dungeon. I was pumped, time to kick some ganon ass! Then I had to go somewhere, and when I came back and loaded the game... BAM, no save game. I looked around in the memory stick menu, nothing! I had lost my Wind Waker save file, my Resident Evil remake save file and my Super Mario Sunshine save file (those were the only gamecube I had at the time) and I was pissed and devastated. I haven't ever finished Wind Waker for that exact reason.

 

[Cowabungaa]

My Pokemon Red save. A completed Pokedex, the Main Three 'monz fully trained from level 1 to 100 without rare candies and plenty of other amazing level 100 Pokemon.

And then one day it was all gone.

I still haven't figured out who did this, but whoever did it...

Second place goes to me fucking up my first Arcanum savegame. I went into a cave to rescue some dude and when I wanted to walk out some ogre comes along that was way too difficult for me to beat. Whatever I tried I couldn't beat him and I couldn't escape the cave either. I was so angry that I didn't touch the game for over a year.

Few weeks ago I tried to give it another go.

Only to have the game bug out on me when I wanted to talk to the dwarf in front of the jewelry shop. Another save gone.

Honourable mentions of other fucked up saves:
- Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines. It imprisoned me in Chinatown.
- The first Deus Ex though I can't remember why.
- My Fallout 1 save where I couldn't get past a patrol no matter what I tried.
- My first TES: Oblivion save where I tried to played an archer and got stuck in a dungeon without arrows.

And I nearly fucked up my Fallout 2 save when I quicksaved during a random event. It started with a bug that made some slavers I encountered non-hostile. I really held my breath but assumed I was safe, so I saved.

However.

Then I tried to walk. And they promptly turned hostile. And they turned my character and companions, Sulik and the recently acquired Vic, into Swiss cheese in two turns. Like, easily 50+ damage per turn while we did 8-ish.

After numerous pathetic attempts and plenty of swearing I managed to run behind a tent, so I was out of the line of fire, while my companions were getting shot up. That got me close enough to the exit grid to get out of there before the slavers could get behind the tent.

So now my character stands in the Courtyard of Vault City. Alone and hurt with only some bullets and a 10mm pistol. I lost an assault rifle and the best shotgun in the game I managed to get by luck (as I was only level 4 at that point), I lost well over $1000 bucks worth of explosives and other stuff. Barely any armour, barely any money, barely any weapons.

 

[Wayneguard]

My first successful character in Morrowind (waaaaaay back when I had it on xbox) fell victim to a lightning strike times perfectly with a saving - don't turn off power moment.... so sad.

 

[SckizoBoy]

My first playthrough of SW: KotOR...

Got so immersed playing the final few levels, I went from the pre-space station planet straight through to the final fight against Malak without saving. Malak was about three quarters of the way through his force-user sacrifices when he managed to stun me and proceed to force-lightning and hack me to death. Biggest case of tear-filled head meets keyboard.

Can't remember if there were any decent auto-saves points from there, was so upset I restarted the damned game! =P

 

[Nietz]

Not really a devastating loss, but something depressing for me to think about. Me and an old classmate of mine used to trade Oblivion save files. He didn't want to create a new character and play it over again, so he copied my 100+ hour char and played, then sent it back to me. We went back and forth like that for a couple of months. We would write notes in our email, talking about our exploits. There was 500+ hours on that save file. We had done pretty much every quest, both expansions and a bunch of modded in quests to boot. But one day it all stopped, we stopped playing Oblivion, and not long after that we stopped hanging out all together. We meet up now and again for drinks, and when it's just the two of us, we sit and reminisce over our Dunmer with tears in our drunken eyes.

I wanted to go back to that save file a couple of months ago, just to see how it was. After hours of searching, it struck me that it hadn't made the many hard drive purges I've done. I wasn't diligent in my save game backups, and now I'm paying for it.