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Why are there locked saves on Wii games?

B

Bebpo

Banned
I understand that PS3 has locked saves because of the stupid trophies and oh noz someone might cheat using them. And I kind of understand online games.

But why are some OFFLINE WII GAMES having locked saves? My Wii might be dying so to take precautions I went to copy my saves to an SD card. All the old Wii games copied fine. But a few recent Wii games had LOCKED SAVES. For instance Sin & Punishment 2 (why???) and Tales of Graces.

These are both games that are very time intensive (S&P2 for scores) and it'd be awful to lose these saves if my Wii dies. So yeah, WTF, why does the Wii let developers lock their saves. Especially on hardware that is not the most reliable.
 
O

Oli

Registered User
The Faceless Master said:
compared to previous nintendo systems, yep.
Click to expand...

That's not saying much.

They're still pretty much the best out there. Regardless of what you think of the company, it's undeniable that they make just about the most reliable products in the industry.
 
B

Bebpo

Banned
The Faceless Master said:
compared to previous nintendo systems, yep.
Click to expand...

Yeah, a decent amount of people have had their gpu's fried. My JP Wii might be on it's way out too (gpu graphical glitches). My US Wii has a bunk disc drive as well. It works but it makes clicking noises :\

It's not like X360 reliability bad, but Wii is probably about PS3 bad and both are far worse than previous generations.
 
blu

blu

Wants the largest console games publisher to avoid Nintendo's platforms.
Bebpo said:
But why are some OFFLINE WII GAMES having locked saves? My Wii might be dying so to take precautions I went to copy my saves to an SD card. All the old Wii games copied fine. But a few recent Wii games had LOCKED SAVES. For instance Sin & Punishment 2 (why???) and Tales of Graces
Click to expand...
wii games with online identities - say, for a leaderboard, have had locked files. i particularly recall geometry wars: galaxies being one of those. what baffles me (and i already posted it in the ps3 thread) is how wii DLC can be made system-locked but still backup-able, but savegames cannot. that basically means the moment your wii's internal file system screws up (not unheard of) - bye-bye 50h+ savegames. while your DLC (which can easily be made re-downloadable) are safe.
 
K

kinosama

Neo Member
Nothing new. Gamecube had locked saves (F-Zero GX, some Pokémon game, probably Animal Crossing). It's to prevent cheating and up to the developer to implement.

Just use homebrew to circumvent the limitation if you're that paranoid.
 
F

flamesofchaos

Member
I believe games with online capabilities have to have protected saves since friend codes are generated and put in the save data and Nintendo doesn't want you to move your friend code to another person's console or something. Though some early Wii games like Metal Slug Anthology have protected saves which is weird.

Most DLC can be copied/moved to a SD card however they can't be moved to another Wii due to obvious reasons.
 
Haunted

Haunted

Member
It's stupid. I think I first noticed it with Brawl. Makes no sense to me, I always had to take the Wii with me when we wanted to play with a complete roster since she hadn't played the SP that far.

Stitch said:
unlock them with startpatch
http://wiibrew.org/wiki/StartPatch
Click to expand...
I didn't even know there was a program that's capable of rectifying the problem. That's pretty awesome. Homebrew to the rescue once again!
 
D

dani_dc

Member
Yeah, I have this concern as well since my Wii sometimes has random issues reading games.

It's a pretty stupid pratice for most cases really.
kinosama said:
Nothing new. Gamecube had locked saves (F-Zero GX, some Pokémon game, probably Animal Crossing). It's to prevent cheating and up to the developer to implement.
Click to expand...
Those games weren't locked to a console though, they were loocked to a MC, so you could easily use said saves between consoles.
 
H

hellclerk

Everything is tsundere to me
The Faceless Master said:
compared to previous nintendo systems, yep.
Click to expand...
The Wii not being as reliable as the Gamecube is like saying that the Dali Lama isn't as nice as Ghandhi. Very, very pointless.
 
HUELEN10

HUELEN10

Member
Do what I did and use your homebrew resources to copy your locked save files. Also, to those saying the hardware is unreliable, it is VERY unreliable compared to past Nintendo consoles. I'm on my 9th/10th or so Wii right now thanks to GPU issues. :( I know that is no common case, but others have had these issues as well.

Regardless, the locking of any save game on any console is a dick move.
 
S

Starwolf_UK

Member
Didn't DBZ Budokai 3 get around this problem by having two save files one of which was an online profile (which was locked).

Either way I wonder why games couldn't have been made like that.

kinosama said:
Nothing new. Gamecube had locked saves (F-Zero GX, some Pokémon game, probably Animal Crossing). It's to prevent cheating and up to the developer to implement.
Click to expand...
The weird thing is Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance is another (so you can't suspend, luck manipulate reload on fail*) but maybe it is my Japanese copy and the USB 1019 block memory card but I see copy blanked out and but move highlighted. F-Zero, PSO and Pokemon Box have both copy and move blanked out.

What I'm saying is it might have been possible for developers to allow saves to be moved from one card to another; just hardly anyone bothered.

*-Funny that this is essentially encouraged in the sequel (well on lower difficulties due to to that battle save option; heck even on the hardest difficulty you can suspend; quit game, copy save to SD card, bothersome still).
 
F

Fuzzy

I would bang a hot farmer!
HUELEN10 said:
Do what I did and use your homebrew resources to copy your locked save files. Also, to those saying the hardware is unreliable, it is VERY unreliable compared to past Nintendo consoles. I'm on my 9th/10th or so Wii right now thanks to GPU issues. :( I know that is no common case, but others have had these issues as well.
Click to expand...
Stop playing shitty Sega games on your Wii and your problems won't appear again. :D
 
Psy-Phi

Psy-Phi

Member
Oli said:
That's not saying much.

They're still pretty much the best out there. Regardless of what you think of the company, it's undeniable that they make just about the most reliable products in the industry.
Click to expand...
Tell that to my lost Mario Kart Wii save, and my friend's two lost Mario Kart Wii saves.

I had to format my Wii's internal memory to fix some problem with installing Lost Winds Meloidas (nintendo told me to do this -- I was unable to back up the save to the SD card). My friend has had two Wii's replaced by Nintendo. One overheated prior to the Firmware update that kicked the fan on in sleep mode. The other I'm not too clear on what happened other than it wouldn't display anything on screen.

I hate locked saves. They're ridiculous and unnecessary. Demon Souls on PS3 is the same way. And I fear what may happen if my PS3 breaks, since backups from one system to another won't work without a direct connection between the two working systems.
 
S

SovanJedi

provides useful feedback
I too am not a big fan of locked Wii game saves. I've lost my entire Smash Bros. Brawl game because of a dead Wii having to be reformatted. If it's to prevent cheating then surely there are other, more user-friendly counteractions to be taken? A little leaderboard monitoring, for example?
 
C

Caesar III

Member
So you have to use some homebrew software to do it and because you did so you have to pay 120€ in extra cash when sending the console to Nintendo?
Am I getting this right?
 
D

Drkirby

Corporate Apologist
Oli said:
That's not saying much.

They're still pretty much the best out there. Regardless of what you think of the company, it's undeniable that they make just about the most reliable products in the industry.
Click to expand...
I don't know, I have been having bad luck with my products this gen. Even my DSi that I got in October is going to need to be repaired soon, the L Button is not responding correctly.
 
G

GameplayWhore

Member
Saves aside, I am annoyed at the prospect of not being able to copy other kinds of save-like game data to SD cards. For example, my friends get all the wrestling games that come out, and they like to share created characters. Anybody know if the WWE games allow you to share CAWs?
 
S

SirPenguin

Member
A quick google search shows that Sin and Punishment 2 has online leaderboards and Tales of Graces has DLC. That's why they are locked. It sucks, I know, but at least there are workarounds
 
D

Deleted member 17706

Unconfirmed Member
Oli said:
Wii hardware isn't reliable? :lol
Click to expand...

The Wii is the only console I have had die on me since my first PS2's DVD drive. My launch 360 is still running just fine but my Wii GPU died within a year of purchasing it.
 
HUELEN10

HUELEN10

Member
RocketDarkness said:
Thank goodness for homebrew. I have my locked saves securely backed up, as well as my Wii's entire flash memory. <3
Click to expand...
Much good that'll do ya, for the most part. Sure it keeps things safe and backed-up, But if your Wii is borked and you need to transfer licenses, you still have to do it through Ninty.

Still better than nothing though, though it's a huge pain for people like me with about 100 licenses from Shop Channel games. :( Wish I could just go buy a new Wii and swap everything myself, but I can't.

Still, it is better than nothing, and I am indeed thankful.
 
D

dallow_bg

nods at old men
Oli said:
Wii hardware isn't reliable? :lol
Click to expand...
1st Wii (launch) GPU died after a few months, kept Wii24 on.
2nd Wii GPU died, few months later, had Wii24 off.
3rd Wii GPU showing early signs. Now I just don't care enough to contact Nintendo.

My first system to ever fail on me like that, well, I used to turn my PSX upside down.
 
Z

ZAK

Member
My Wii broke because I dropped it. Then I fixed it.

Well, that's not quite true... I wasn't the one who dropped it.
 
G

grandjedi6

Master of the Google Search
Ah, I was wondering why I couldn't move some save files the other day. Interesting... interesting and stupid.

I got a solution though: We all call up Nintendo customer service and pretend to be confused soccer moms. Make sure you respond in utter confusion to anything they say and also make sure you call back with the exact same question 3 more times within 30 minutes of the first call, wait 2 hours, and then call it again. Eventually their customer service will get tired of it and file a meaningless service complaint. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
 
O

Osuwari

Member
if i had to pick just 1 reason to keep homebrew on my wii forever it would be the ability to unlock saves.
i really hate when i can't backup my saves. fortunately my first wii died by the time no locked saves existed yet and my current one has homebrew to back up everything. i do back ups on all my saves and make a new backup after playing a game for a month or more.
what's more burning is that the games where you can lose the most stuff are the locked ones (SSBB, MKWii, AC, just to name a few).
 
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