The Worst Ways People Have Lost Their Saved Games

One of my favorite RPGs in high school was Final Fantasy X. You can imagine my excitement when Square Enix bucked historical tradition and made a direct sequel with the lady-focused Final Fantasy X-2. (Sphere grid! Sphere grid!) I’d poured hours into the game over the summer, prior to starting college, and was excited to grind through the rest, but when I showed up to school, I couldn’t find my memory card. And not just “a” memory card, but the memory card with all my saved games. My mom said she’d drop it in the mailbox, and when I stopped to pick it up a few days later, I found a package with a big hole in it.

The memory card was, of course, gone. All my hours in Final Fantasy X-2—heck, all my hours into dozens of other games—gone. I never got around to playing the game again.

I am hardly the only person with a saved game horror story. I started thinking about the topic after stumbling upon a reddit thread where a father had accidentally deleted his son’s save for The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, and hoped someone could help out. One person even offered to play the game, if the father didn’t have the time. (It turns out he was running a hacked 3DS, and should be able to put together a save with some clever digging around.)

That got me thinking about what other people have encountered, and so I put out a call on Twitter. Hooo boy! The stories that came back were monstrous, infuriating, heartbreaking…hilarious? Some of you should be ashamed of yourselves! You’re terrible! Your parents are terrible! Your brother and/or sister is terrible! Those poor saved games…

A lot of the stories fell into different categorical tropes, so I’ve arranged them as such. Enjoy indulging in the misery of others.

Follow Patrick on Twitter. If you've lost your save file in a tragic way, drop an email: patrick.klepek@vice.com. He's also available privately on Signal.