Paranoid about losing my town?

[daynapapaya]

I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels this way?

I put so much time and effort into building up my town, and sometimes I find myself worrying, "what if the game cartridge breaks/stops working? what if the SD card breaks/stops working???" and then I think about all the progress I'll lose. It's not fun. I want my town to last...forever, basically. Like, I wanna pick up my 3DS when I'm 70 years old and show off my town and villagers to my grandkids (and I totally will). But will this be impossible because of the way Nintendo has prevented us from backing up the game in any way? Or is there something I can do?

 

[Momo15]

I felt the same way as you did, especially since I've owned LuzDale for almost 2 years now. There is something you can do, but it is kinda taboo here, and that device would be the Action Replay Powersave. Despite what it's mostly used for, it is a lifesaver when it comes to backing up your save on your game(s). I have a few friends with it who had their games corrupted at least once by other means then backup their save with it. If paranoia is getting the best of you, I suggest you look into it.

 

[daynapapaya]

Why is it taboo, may I ask? (I've been playing for a year, but just casually without using the internet for anything, so there's a lot I don't know!)

 

[Momo15]

Why is it taboo, may I ask? (I've been playing for a year, but just casually without using the internet for anything, so there's a lot I don't know!)

It's because the Action Replay is a hacking device as well as a backup. While hacking is becoming more accepted, there's still a large number who disapprove of it.

 

[Flynn]

I still worry about mine going corrupt. I purchased the Animal Crossing New Leaf edition 3DS XL on release, so it came with the game already loaded onto it. I worry that if my 3DS breaks, I'll lose all of my work. I definitely wish I could use my PowerSaves to backup the file, but it doesn't work with digital copies of the game. I've had my 3DS XL for over two years now and it's still in great shape. Hopefully my town last forever.

 

[mintellect]

Every time I plot reset, I'm scared my town will corrupt, because corruption can happen due to resetting a lot. That's why although I usually have specific plots set up, I just accept a reasonable location after a few days.

 

[Ettienne]

I have nightmares about mine corrupting.

 

[daynapapaya]

Every time I plot reset, I'm scared my town will corrupt, because corruption can happen due to resetting a lot. That's why although I usually have specific plots set up, I just accept a reasonable location after a few days.

Magic Marshmallow, what do you mean by "plot reset"?

 

[mintellect]

It's a trick that you can use to somewhat get your villagers homes to land where you want them too. However it's vey time consuming, boring, frustrating, and as I stated, it risks having your town corrupt.

 

[Tikikata]

I've never used Action Replay myself for a number of reasons, but if it can be used to create a back-up of a town, I don't think it would necessarily count as "cheating." Anywho, I've always been paranoid of losing my town; seeing posts occasionally pop up here saying their game got corrupted and resulted in deleting and restarting their town got me scared, too. I wish Nintendo would create a "legal" way of creating back-ups for town data so people who want to restart a town, but start to feel regret soon after can reload their old town without issues.

 

[Ettienne]

I've never used Action Replay myself for a number of reasons, but if it can be used to create a back-up of a town, I don't think it would necessarily count as "cheating." Anywho, I've always been paranoid of losing my town; seeing posts occasionally pop up here saying their game got corrupted and resulted in deleting and restarting their town got me scared, too. I wish Nintendo would create a "legal" way of creating back-ups for town data so people who want to restart a town, but start to feel regret soon after can reload their old town without issues.

Nintendo offers a method to back-up save game data for digital copies, but not physical because the data's on your cartridge and not the SD card. There should be a download option or something so you can copy cartridge data to your SD card. If your cartridge corrupts, you'd have the SD copy. Then again, it seems to be consensus that digital copies corrupt more often.

 

[Tikikata]

Must have missed that update then! Thanks for letting me know!
I agree, that would be really nice to have. I have a physical copy, so knowing my data could get corrupted at any time from wrong-use or some other factor is a little scary.

 

[Fandabidozi]

I didn't know that Ettienne, thanks. I'm gonna find out how to do this asap.
This is why I'm so glad there's PokeBank now. If anything happened to all my Pokemon that would be a disaster!!!