The reason: The game does not let you reset saved game data. Why? Presumably as a parlor trick to disuade used (or as I call them: pre-owned) game sales. But Capcom ambiguously says that’s not the case.
“Secondhand game sales were not a factor in this development decision,” Capcom said in a statement to Giant Bomb. “This feature does not remove any content available for users.”
But as Ben at Ars Technica notes, “If this isn’t to hurt the resale value, why else would you do this? This hurts everyone who buys a copy of the game, and significantly harms the long-term replayability of the title…So thanks, Capcom. You have made my purchasing decision much easier.”
Please join Ben in boycotting the game, won’t you? Besides, haven’t you played like 10 iterations of Resident Evil already?
You can't erase your save data? Wow, what a great feature to add the reported slim content, pop-in glitches and wonky frame rate.
What a shame, considering their SSF4 is one of the system's strongest games.
I was not going to get this game anyways. lol.
I think this is a bad decision for Capcom and they are obviously testing this out on a low risk game.
I do have to take umbrage with your comment "haven't you played like 10 iterations of Resident Evil already?" Maybe some people want more. Haven't you and I already played 10 iterations of Super Mario Brothers, Zelda, Metroid, or Pokemon? Obviously you didn't take the don't bash Sonic article to heart.
What an abominable thing to do. I will never buy any game that has this "feature". Thanks for bringing it to our attention, Blake. This is the first I've heard of it.
@Baelnic
Partially made in jest. But you and I both know Nintendo games are more inclined (although not always) to introduce fresher gameplay than Capcom. 🙂
@Blake. I was jesting too. I didn't put a 😛 at the end of it.
For what it's worth, isn't this game on iOS already? It would be much cheaper there than for the DS.
wait- so even if you buy a new copy you can only play through once? or once for as many save files are available? and then you cant play it anymore?
Once you play through, everything is unlocked on subsequent play sessions. It's not an RPG or Adventure game. Think of it like playing through a fighting game and unlocking everything. You can play through it again but you will already have all the players unlocked, weapons unlocked, etc.
@deepthought
Directly from Capcom:
"In Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D, all mission progress is saved directly to the Nintendo 3DS cartridge, where it cannot be reset. The nature of the game invites high levels of replayability in order to improve mission scores. In addition, this feature does not remove any content available for users. Secondhand game sales were not a factor in this development decision, so we hope that all our consumers will be able to enjoy the entirety of the survival-action experiences that the game does offer."
@ baelnic
oh ok. sounds like not a big deal then. though i totally get not liking perceived attempts to cut off the second hand market.
I'd be more angry if I loaned my game to a friend just to find out the asshole erased my saved file with my highest scores. Complaining about this is ridiculous and sending a message not to buy this game over the save system is something I find very childish. If, on the other hand, the article told me "don't buy this game because it's really terrible, boring, uninspired, and just plain overpriced for what it is" THEN I would understand.
Whenever I heard that there won't be more than one save file, that can't be erased…I was instantly off-put. If they wanted to there to be no pre-owned game sales, make it a downloadable title, and don't pull a stupid stunt like this…it boggles the mind how they're trying to make this sound like a good thing, when it clearly isn't.
yeah, it's no big deal at all, since it's basically a score attack game.
and not buying the game it's not gonna do much about this particular issue, the best way to send a message to capcom would be to write an email specifically saying why you personally are not gonna get the game.
This is so stupid. If I buy this game, and beat it and years later I want replay it from the beginning I can't…why because Capcom decided be prikes about it!
If you put the game down and pick it up again years later, your early high scores will be untouchable, and you won't have the fun & incentive of slowly pushing up that high score as you get better and better.
So for me, because it's a score attack game, the unresettable save is a problem.
@ Kaherka
if you could reset it, wouldn't your early higher scores still be untouchable?
Okay, I'm tired of this going around the internet. CAPCOM IS NOT THE ONLY COMPANY DOING THIS. This issue is in Rayman, Splinter Cell, Super Monkey Ball, BlazBlue, and a number of other titles. It is not only Capcom, it's Ubisoft, Sega, Aksys, and possibly a few other companies. Simply boycotting a quick turnaround title will not affect the companies that didn't make RE:M.
@Artefacto – childish? just because you dont agree with an opinion doesnt make it childish, that attitude is just childish. grow up kid.
@Mark – your tired of this? so just because not everyone has seen this tactic in other games we should just ignore it in every new game going forward? what if we had taken this attitude after the first jewish concentration camp. "ugh im so tired of all these jews complaining about the ovens. get over it already, the goldbergs, weinstiens, and edelsteins – they have all been cooked in the oven already, can we stop talking about it already?!"
They act like video games are the only things that get re-sold. They just have to suck it up and realize that the second hand market is not the only thing this move will affect. And we, as the people who dish out ridiculous amounts of money for digital entertainment, deserve the basic right to start a game over if we want to. We have always had this option, and its too late to try and take it away.
And even so couldn't the desperate disassemble the cartridge and do it that way?
@mlove99 – Wow! That is interesting. and they say you never learn anything reading video game forums 🙂
-to add my .02… I believe that we should boycot. if enough of us complain, and promise not to buy, we can overturn the company's intent.
Case in point. when Battlefield Bad Company (1 I believe) was comming out, EA wanted to make it where you had to spend real money to buy (unlock) weapons for the network multiplayer portion of the game. As I recall, Gamer Blogs raised a huge stink over it and in return, EA relented from going through and did away with the option (at least watered it down to only having you buy "bling" or non-essential load outs just for pimping out your Multi-Playing-Char)
point is… the consumer does have the right to not buy the product in response to disagreeing with the retailer. and the retailer never wants the public to bring enough attention to the problem to cause them to lose revenue.
I'll gladly sign a petition. Even though it may have been done in the past and no one noticed, we can always respond now and send a message to the industry (quit being so damn greedy you idiots! 2nd hand sells are not your problem.)
-cheers and viva revolution!
That's good you guys. Give capcom a reason not to develope for the 3DS
Can't say I care much since I don't want the game. I actually think it's kind of funny since it doesn't affect me.
I've been talking trash about this game since day one. This is an obvious port from ps2. look at this compared to resident evil revelations. revelations looks great. mercenaries is a dumb idea. get resident evil 4 and you have basically what this game is offering. think about it.
Or, ya know, you could buy the game. Support the other people who worked on it.
I bought it. It's not perfect but its very fun.
@randy
I didn't say that complaining about the save system was childish. I said it was ridiculous. What I said was childish is to make a statement to not buy the game over it. Instead, the real reasons should be the game itself, and not how the game is saved. Issues concerning how fun the game is, how long it is, how entertaining or well made the action is are important. Not so much if you can't erase your high score. Not to be devil's advocate, but I think it's a good move because you work for those high scores, and I rather not have them erased. I do think it's blown out of proportion, and that Capcom is not the only one who does it, it just gets all the barking. A petition to change the game, fine, that's activism. A movement to not buy the game because of the save system? Idiotic and childish. A movement to not buy the game because it's a bad game? Perfectly reasonable.
@artefacto
It's good to see that there are people out there with some common sense. I can't believe the backlash that Capcom is getting because of the save issue. It's not like you're losing anything because you bought the game used. They're not leaving out content that you can't go back to. Play the game in the proper order and you'll be doing the exact same thing the person before you did and "virtually" unlocking everything all over again.
The internet is filled with whining and it's overblown because there hasn't been any really big news this week so people are making something out of nothing so they can whine about it.
As far as used sales go (or as I said before, playing after a long hiatus) you can't compete against your recent bests in the same way as you can with a fresh save file. This is a big deal to me. It can easily be the difference between the game being fun and not being fun.
Even Gamefly is flipping this game the bird:
"NOTE: This game is not rentable due to game save restrictions on the cartridge."
Sounds like an awfully petty reason to not buy a game. "Oh, no. I have to be able to play as all the unlockable Characters and have higher scores to beat." Big deal.
Well,i bought it.Its still a great game guys.Just this flaw gives it a huge amount of hate,i This its a little unfair.I am mad at capcom,but can't we just overlook this?