Ocarina of Time (N64) Save damage question (Heart Pieces)

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

So, in my current Ocarina of Time save file, I'm 1 Piece of Heart away from completing the last Heart Container.

Aaaand I'm thinking that at some point my save file must have glitched and "eaten" a collected Heart Piece. I'm currently going through them all looking to see if there's one I overlooked or can re-get, but it's not looking promising.

Has anyone heard of or experienced such a glitch before? I think it also lost a killed Gold Skulltula at some point; I'm pretty sure I had to kill the one in the high cave (the one you get into by lifting a Silver Gauntlets boulder) at Zora's Fountain twice.

I'm playing the Nintendo 64 version. Version 1.1 specifically (so gray cartridge, but has the original (lazily-appropriated) Gerudo symbol and such).


UPDATE: So, when double-checking Heart Pieces, I got to the point where the only two left to check were the Gravedigging Tour one and the Zora's Domain torch chest one, both of which I was sure I already gotten. I checked the Zora's Domain torch chest one first... and lo and behold, the chest appeared unopened with the missing Piece of Heart inside. But again, I'm pretty sure I collected that one already - before I even got the Silver Scale, in fact. So I still think something glitched.

 

[Salem]

The only way to be sure to is too have a checklist and check each and every one.

 

[Deleted member 83535]

Honestly, it just sounds like you assumed you had done it, forgot and blamed the game. You probably also missed a skulltula somewhere. Have fun looking for all of them. I don't remember if version 1.1 marks areas that have been completely scoured of skulltulas.

 

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

Honestly, it just sounds like you assumed you had done it, forgot and blamed the game. You probably also missed a skulltula somewhere. Have fun looking for all of them. I don't remember if version 1.1 marks areas that have been completely scoured of skulltulas.

First off:
Yes, it does mark them. And it was driving me crazy that Zora's Domain wasn't marked as complete, because I was pretty sure I had killed everything there. I knew for a fact that I had already been up to the high cave and at the very least struck down the Gold Skulltula there on that playthrough, that was the first place I went after returning to the future once I got the Silver Gauntlets. So either I somehow then failed to grab the token before jumping down, or the save file got glitched. As an aside, I'd actually found all 100 at the time of posting.

Second:
Similarly, I knew darn well that I had at the very least lit the torches in Zora's domain previously. I remembered doing that when I first got there, before I even got the Silver Scale. And this playthrough began on Christmas Eve, so there wasn't exactly a lot of time to forget things or get confused with a different playthrough (esp. considering I hadn't touched the cartridge in a few years).

Third:
Something did happen that could possibly cause glitching: The power to the outlet the console was plugged into abruptly went out in the middle of play at one point, during Sheik's speech after the Water Temple.

At this point. I'm just curious if anyone has heard of or experienced the game glitching thus. Confirmation that this particular sort of save damage could happen.

 

[DeletedUser8]

Did you get the one you can get as an adult in Zora's River by using the Longshot on the high wall near the top of the river?

That's the one I always miss.

Also, out of all of the 200+ known glitches in the game, not one has ever been known to corrupt save data. It takes a lot more work to overwrite items in your equipment sub screen, then it does and your items sub screen. Trust me, I've tinkered around with these glitches, and not once has it corrupted my save data in any way.

 

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

Did you get the one you can get as an adult in Zora's River by using the Longshot on the high wall near the top of the river?

That's the one I always miss.

Yes, I got that one. See the previous message, where I said "As an aside, I'd actually found all 100 at the time of posting. " I even triple-checked the spot while trying to find what I was missing. The absolute last missing one in Zora's domain turned out to be the one in the high cave at Zora's Fountain (the cave with invisible hanging Skulltulas that you need the Silver Gauntlets to get into), which I had already at least killed once before.

Also, out of all of the 200+ known glitches in the game, not one has ever been known to corrupt save data. It takes a lot more work to overwrite items in your equipment sub screen, then it does and your items sub screen. Trust me, I've tinkered around with these glitches, and not once has it corrupted my save data in any way.

But has that included messing around with the potential problems caused by sudden power loss? That's the kind of thing that can screw up an otherwise-functioning game, and I had an instance of that - I was playing in the car, and the car (and thus the outlet) got turned off in the middle of Sheik's schpiel after you beat the Water Temple.
That brings up another question: Does the game stealth-autosave when you collect a boss' dropped Heart Container or step in the post-boss warp? Because when I got back to the boss room after that incident, Morpha was already dead and I still had the additional Heart, and I can't remember whether I manually saved between collecting the container and stepping in the warp.

Anyway, it's good to know that Ocarina of Time is more stable than, say, Pokemon Emerald (where you have to save multiple times just to be sure because of the save regression glitch - which I actually ran afoul of once).

 

[DeletedUser8]

It's literally impossible to corrupt your save file due to power outage, even if you press the reset button as your saving, you won't corrupt it.

That's the one thing I love about Ocarina of Time.

 

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

The reset button is a soft reset, though. What happened to me was basically the same as the console being unplugged mid-play.

But if you're sure...

Then I somehow managed to light the Zora's Domain torches but fail to actually collect the Piece of Heart from the chest, and to kill the Gold Skulltula in the Zora's Fountain cave but miss grabbing the token before jumping down.

 

[Mellow Ezlo]

In some versions of the game, not sure if it was patched out or not, but the Heart Piece that you get from Dampe's grave digging minigame can be obtained infinitely, so even if you're missing a heart piece and don't know where it is, that's a way to cheat the system. Same goes with gold skulltula token outside the Castle courtyard (in the Song of Storms grotto), by targeting the token, throwing the Boomerang, and then backflipping into the portal as the boomerang returns to you, that token can be collected infinitely as long as you haven't already collected it.

 

[DeletedUser8]

In some versions of the game, not sure if it was patched out or not, but the Heart Piece that you get from Dampe's grave digging minigame can be obtained infinitely, so even if you're missing a heart piece and don't know where it is, that's a way to cheat the system. Same goes with gold skulltula token outside the Castle courtyard (in the Song of Storms grotto), by targeting the token, throwing the Boomerang, and then backflipping into the portal as the boomerang returns to you, that token can be collected infinitely as long as you haven't already collected it.

That's only in the 3DS remake I believe, in the original if you didn't grab the heart piece it was lost forever.

 

[ZeldaTheSwordsman]

That's only in the 3DS remake I believe, in the original if you didn't grab the heart piece it was lost forever.

I believe he's talking about being able to dig up and collect the Heart Piece multiple times. Not that it really matters, because his saying "try these exploits" means he obviously skimmed the thread rather than reading it properly.