Shape Shifter has made me very sad

[roflmao]

So yesterday I got Shape Shifter in the mail and I was all excited to play it because it's one of the few US releases I've never played before.  Things are going great.  I'm navigating around town, listening to everyone's story and then it's time to put the kid to bed.  I speak with the mayor and save the game. 

Today I popped in Dragon Knight III which I've been playing off and on over the past few weeks.  To my surprise, There's no option to load up my saved game from the main menu; only an option to start a new game.  Strange.

So I reboot and go into the TG16's memory to see if I can find the Dragon Knight III save.

Everything is gone, except for a Shape Shifter save file.

ALL of my save games.  Ys Book I &II, Ys Book III, Kabuki Den, Dracula X, Bomberman '93 - all gone.

So I googled the issue and it seems there's some sort of random bug related to Shape Shifter that can erase all your game saves.  I couldn't really find much information about the bug, but I'm not in any hurry to play Shape Shifter again.  And it looks like it has so much potential.

WTF.

[hoobs88]

Sorry about your loss. I had some saves backed up on a Tennokoe Bank and I'm not sure if I lost them because I can't read Kanji and deleted them by mistake or if Shape Shifter was partly responsible for it but I've been there before. Thanks for sharing the info about the bug so others can prepare for it.

[A Black Falcon]

It would be great if it was possible for someone to make a patch that fixes this bug... too hard, I guess.  Yeah, it's a definite issue.

[TheClash603]

I played through Shape Shifter and saved the game and it didn't corrupt my Duo saves.  Maybe the key is just to isolate exactly what causes the saved data corruption?

[ParanoiaDragon]

Wow, that really stinks!  I don't recall ever having the problem.  The only problem I had was that my friend save his game over mine BITD

[vestcoat]

It would be great if it was possible for someone to make a patch that fixes this bug... too hard, I guess.  

Forget making a patch, we can't even get stickies for this kind of shit. Carmen Sandiego is the other game that can swipe a bank too, apparently.

[esteban]

It would be great if it was possible for someone to make a patch that fixes this bug... too hard, I guess. 

Forget making a patch, we can't even get stickies for this kind of shit. Carmen Sandiego is the other game that can swipe a bank too, apparently.

I didn't know about this!

Or, to be more precise: I probably read about it years ago and promptly forgot about it.

Yup.

[SuperPlay]

Wooooooooo I hate in when you loose saves :-(

Thanks for sharing the info, this is one I did not know about.

[Black Tiger]

It would be great if it was possible for someone to make a patch that fixes this bug... too hard, I guess.  Yeah, it's a definite issue.

It's easier to swap out a save bank in ten seconds using a Tennokoe Bank than fooling around with cdrs.

There are several games that overwrite other saves. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Hi Leg Fantasy.

[roflmao]

Well, it's good to know that other games do this as well.  From now on I guess I'll be backing up my saves via Tennokoe Benk before starting up Shape Shifter.  Carmen San Diego has piqued my interest so I may pick it up at some point and I'll have to remember to use the Tennokoe Bank for that as well.  It's a pain, but I'd rather go through that process than lose everything again.

[Bernie]

Just use a different system with those games.  You have a working TG16 with CD right?  Carmen can use the system 13 card if you dont have the 2.0 for it.

[vestcoat]

There are several games that overwrite other saves. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Hi Leg Fantasy.

Wow, a third one. Let me know if you think of any more.

[roflmao]

One strange thing I noticed is when I started up a new game in Dragon Knight III again, my dude had the same stats as my lost game.  But once I activated a story element in the second city, he reverted back to a level 1 character.

[A Black Falcon]

Carmen Sandiego can erase your files too?  I'd heard that Shape Shifter and Hi-Leg Fantasy can do that, and that Shadow of the Beast will erase everything in memory if there's not enough space for its save file when it tries to save, but hadn't heard about that one... huh.  I'll have to add it to my list ( http://www.pcenginefx.com/forums/index.php?topic=12247.msg237956#msg237956 ).

It would be great if it was possible for someone to make a patch that fixes this bug... too hard, I guess.  Yeah, it's a definite issue.

It's easier to swap out a save bank in ten seconds using a Tennokoe Bank than fooling around with cdrs.

But then you'd have to dedicate one whole bank on the Tennokoe Bank to just Shape Shifter, meaning that it'd effectively be using all 2000 blocks instead of the 177 that it actually takes up... quite a waste of space.

There are several games that overwrite other saves. The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Hi Leg Fantasy.

True, but Shape Shifter is the only US release that does so (though that Shadow of the Beast note is important to know as well!).

[Sadler]

Sorry to hear that rofl I went through something similar recently, lost my LoX save. Based on this thread, I'm thinking it was hi leg that did that, but what's weird is my Duo's memory was completely blank. There wasn't even a hi leg save on it.