Your used game/rental game existing save stories.

save_game_stories.jpg
While it might be something of a dying concept with disc based games and profile locked saves stored with online servers then for many years games had their saves stick with them, and even without that you might have bought a memory card or console with existing things on it. Others might have rented games and experienced something similar, indeed many have stories of playing the same games as someone else local to them that they might have never met, as well as adopting a certain etiquette when playing such things.

By way of example. End of the 16 bit era. I had purchased a copy of a Lotus III driving game for the megadrive. Today it is not so well remembered other than being an earlier example of procedural generation, and a few select fans of game music (skip to track 3/6:29 for what many consider the best). In my case the high score table told me in a few letters each time how to access the hidden shmup minigame, something in the pre internet era I might never have discovered. Presented something of a dilemma when I eventually got good enough to start troubling the high scores as well.

More recently. A "too good to be true" deal on an xbox 360 slim saw me have to clean out smoker house dust from everything including the power supply, however that did mean a nice working xbox 360 as a result. It included a profile with a bunch of saves on it, one that I am actually still using (who needs online games). Exploring someone else's game of Skate 3 was an interesting affair, though if someone else has played with someone else's pokemon I am sure we are all interested in that one.

On a somewhat related note then back on the N64 then in Goldeneye you had to earn cheats by beating levels within a timeframe, some of them were fairly notable feats so a friend traded his cartridge with said cheats unlocked with another person in the school.

Maybe you encountered a copy of 3ds Resident Evil Mercenaries and all that went on there.

To that end you are invited to share some notable or otherwise interesting stories of your interactions with second hand games and the saves contained upon them.
 

iLL wiLL

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
Dec 2, 2013
Messages
367
Trophies
1
Age
43
XP
571
Country
United States
Not a game or anything, but I bought an early 2000s laptop a couple years ago that ended up being owned by Mike DeGruy. There wasn't a whole lot of data on it, seemed like most things were on an external drive or a network drive, but did find a few neat things on it, couple scripts he wrote for videos and a few pictures and such.
speaking of laptops I used to buy broken phones and laptops and ended up fixing like 95% out of 100% of what I bought.I used to purchase high end broken laptops for like$25 a piece and I usually would buy all there phones and they give me a good price just to take all there broken stuff and after fixing I've found pictures, movies, emails etc on the phones and laptops.I couldn't tell you some of the stuff I've seen I would end up erasing it if I were to resell it just to make a few bucks.I used to do this year's ago early 2000s and you wouldn't believe what ppl put on these devices!!!!even with the smart phones.over half of them contained nacked selfies.I would factory reset them before reselling them.I couldn't imagine ppl not realizing when they drop off there phone or laptop for a repair and not realizing that the person fixing it when they check it are gonna see the stuff you have on your phone just saying.ppl don't realize they put more of what they would never share with another person on there personal devices and the sad thing is browser's like google save all this info!!alot of ppl will google stuff that they would never share with another person!! neck I'm even guilty of that lol.I haven't really done anymore phones in a long time since there much harder to do.its not worth it.even selling stuff on ebay is turned into a nightmare!! did you here about the guy who got sued for selling his n64 on eBay from Nintendo!!! what a joke.
 

SacredMilkOG

Active Member
Newcomer
Joined
Dec 17, 2021
Messages
35
Trophies
0
Age
29
XP
59
Country
United States
if someone else has played with someone else's pokemon I am sure we are all interested in that one.
I reeally really hope whoever got my Pokemon game collection decided to keep my saves or at least went through my PCs. :( I had so much legit stuff and you can't even get most of them these days without cheating.... including a legit untrained level 5 Mew, a Jirachi, enough trades to always win Goldenrod's number draw and a bunch of promotion shinies.

Almost all of those were in my Soulsilver version :/ my jerk cousin stole all (a lott) of my games and handhelds I owned just a couple of years ago. I still think about the friends lost and all of the hours I put into them. I really valued that stuff and to boot- it adds up to thousands of dollars of belongings stolen from me today.
 

AsWeGoAlong14

Well-Known Member
Newcomer
Joined
Jan 25, 2019
Messages
61
Trophies
0
Location
New South Wales
Website
ronandpeggy.carrd.co
XP
243
Country
Australia
I've never thrifted, apparently my dad had a knack for finding DS chips every time he went out (Not making this up, he literally spawns the things), and one time he took home a super princess peach chip he found at the doctors office and gave it to me. All of the game slots were taken up, every single one stopped at the third or so level. I thought it was awesome and unheard of as a kid, as an adult it was a pretty mundane chip.
I still have the game chip to this day, slots still intact.
 

AngryCinnabon

Resident Iron Valiant
Member
Joined
Oct 2, 2015
Messages
735
Trophies
0
Location
Canada; Ontario
Website
steamcommunity.com
XP
2,911
Country
Canada
I rented a copy of pokemon PMD 2 (can't remember what edition, i think it was explorers of darkness)
and there was a quicksave on it for that dungeon that you get chatot a gift from, being the dumb idiot i was i opened it, it was saved right in a Kecleon shop.
I think anyone familiar with the series knows where this is heading, the fucker who rented it last practically laid a trap on it by grabbing an item from said shop, went to exit the shop once so the Kecleon thinks you're stealing next time, saved and returned the game to Rogers. For those who don't know what that means, basically the Kecleon won't take that well at all and will have it's level set to 100, given a speed boost, spawn clones of itself, disable escape orb usage (these allow you to instantly leave most dungeons without it being counted as a failed mission) and will stalk you for ALL THE FLOORS in the dungeon if you manage to even get past the floor you were on from there... and what if you get beaten? you will ALWAYS lose all of your items and currency that wasn't entrusted with a storage shop and bank.

Since i had zero idea that i was holding stolen goods in that game, i was scared to death of those fuckers in gates to infinity, thinking they just had a random chance of going batshit insane and mugging you.
 

blue-moon

Active Member
Newcomer
Joined
Oct 29, 2021
Messages
28
Trophies
0
Age
18
Location
the North
Website
vgcollect.com
XP
492
Country
United Kingdom
I got a copy of Pokémon alpha sapphire that was left just outside the elite 4 without ever beating it, just kinda sad someone got that close to beating the game but ended up forgetting about it
 

Dvdxploitr

Well-Known Member
Member
Joined
May 24, 2008
Messages
705
Trophies
1
XP
1,295
Country
United States
There used to be a game store that had a ton of memory cards for PS1 and PS2. I bought about 20 PS2 memory cards and browsed thru the files. Really nice saves from Final Fantasy X and other games. Also some interesting character names too. There was “doo-doo” and “penis” on FFX
 

Sworly

Active Member
Newcomer
Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Messages
44
Trophies
1
Age
34
Location
Stinkyville
XP
277
Country
United States
I've been buying up DS/3DS games en masse thanks to Nintendo's FOMO announcement (closing of eShops), and have gotten some all around interesting experiences, varying from games that had at best a few hours put into them, to saves dated in the 2011's for New Super Mario Bros. 2 (which came out well after 2011), to games with hundreds of hours of progress put into them (those made me guilty about deleting).

With Pokemon games (bought secondhand), I've gotten some event-only gems, shiny Pokemon that I'd wanted but didn't want to put effort into getting, etc.
 

Aristeia

Active Member
Newcomer
Joined
Mar 22, 2022
Messages
30
Trophies
0
Location
The UK
XP
249
Country
United Kingdom
I remember renting Sonic 3 way back when, it was a recent(ish) release at the time. I was really quite crap at games when I was a kid, so I was surprised when I loaded one of the saves and Sonic went super saiyan after I picked up enough rings.

It was a late game save too, right at the final level, and I was completely in awe of the "secret" Doomsday Zone. I spent all summer that year on a mystical quest, trying to find all the emeralds myself.

I'll always cherish memories like that, games have so much mystery when you're young and have no clue what the heck you're doing! 🤣
 

FAST6191

Techromancer
OP
Editorial Team
Joined
Nov 21, 2005
Messages
36,798
Trophies
3
XP
28,284
Country
United Kingdom
Surprised to see this going.

Also realised the other day. My 360 I got a while back for next to nothing and cleaned dust out of. Has a copy of Skate2 and Skate 3 downloadable versions and a bit of DLC for 2. I have the discs but nice to have anyway.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Aristeia and Sworly

Sworly

Active Member
Newcomer
Joined
Nov 13, 2016
Messages
44
Trophies
1
Age
34
Location
Stinkyville
XP
277
Country
United States
Oh, I guess another recent incident was: my neighbor dicks around the trash cans randomly, sometimes finding stuff worthwhile that people dump (and even found a gold engagement ring that I wasn't successful in finding the owner of); well, about a month ago, he knocks on my door, with a PS3 Slim in hand, no cords, but did find Project Diva F in case next to it. So I get it plugged in, things works better than the one I already have (that's in the closet since it doesn't read discs), and better yet, has a copy of Marvel vs Capcom 3 in the disc drive. Got it all cleaned up and loaded a bunch of PS3/PS1 games I have in my PSN library.
 

PrinceOfBrains

Well-Known Member
Newcomer
Joined
Apr 5, 2021
Messages
48
Trophies
0
Age
36
XP
206
Country
United States
As a kid, I tried to start my own save file on a Blockbuster rental copy of Super Metroid until I got lost (like I always do in Metroid games), and then switched over to the other save file (right before Mother Brain) just to see the ending.

I regret nothing.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Aristeia

Site & Scene News

Popular threads in this forum

General chit-chat
Help Users
    LeoTCK @ LeoTCK: hmm