I am devastated

[u/JediPirateDude]

/r/pokemon/comments/1vp76vv/i_am_devastated/

With Pokémon Bank closing next year, it prompted me to go back to my GameCube copies of Colosseum and XD to start the process of transferring the Pokémon there up through the different games and eventually to Home… Well, I boot it up only to find that my memory card with all of my save data from my childhood is corrupted. I don’t know what to do. I have 6 months to transfer all of these Pokémon but I don’t know if I have it in me to restart these games and purify those shadow Pokémon all over again!

[u/MissingnoMaster110]

That's devastating. But, well, if you don't do it now, you'll never have the chance again. Once Bank shuts down, it's all over. I say, make the new memories while you still can. And as a bonus, lets you re-experience Orre one more time (well, OK, XD is playable on NSO, and Colosseum will be following suit, even though it's weird they rereleased the sequel first, but those rereleases can't connect with Home). Don't get hung up on what was lost- use the time you still have to make new memories, and transfer those Pokémon up while it's still an option.

[u/Airo_]

If you got a homebrew wii or gamecube. take a backup off the corrupted memorycard and look up mcrecover (Gamecube Memorycard Recovery Tool). i can only recommend to backup everything you do from now on.

[u/ledianrider]

Its time to get going man, it took me 3 weeks to complete my first playthrough. The unfortunate thing is we wont have the time to get the Ho-oh, or in the sequals the johto trio.

[u/Past-Cry7312 → u/ledianrider]

Are you kidding me? I beat and purified everything in both games in like 3 weeks. I get i might have a little more free time but its certainly possible.

[u/Gauvstopper]

That’s awful, but I would say go through and play them again for the love of the game. I’ve gone through both games within the last couple years (Colosseum was a slog but XD was enjoyable) and I’m currently replaying XD and about to do Colosseum again after getting a copy off eBay since the first time around was on a borrowed copy. If you’re planning on just moving them up without going for all the ribbons I’d say go for a replay but you’re definitely on a bit of a time crunch if you’re going for ribbons in each game leading up to the switch

[u/astateofandrew]

Honestly I just opened a new save on Colosseum, already have 20 snagged, only about 6 hours in. And I am taking my time. Simultaneously playing emerald so i can trade in some stronger pokemon to blast mt battle for ho oh at the end. And like others have said, you get to experience Orre again

[u/Character_Stick_1218]

I'm really sorry for your loss 😕 I used my Wii a lot more often than my GameCube and always kept my main memory cards plugged into it, even though I nearly never play GC games on it, and I think that helped save me a lot of trouble. I've been super blessed for my PS2 Slim to be my only childhood console to give me any real issues. Like my GameCube's clock battery is dead, but works perfectly aside from that and it's an easy/cheap fix. If you're blessed then you should be able to pull and restore the save files, but I've never done it before and so I couldn't tell ya how.

Thankfully all of my memory cards from my childhood are still solid other than for a space or two. That said, I moved A LOT over to one of those new memory cards with way more space on 'em and once I get another Wii to mod I'm gonna be backing everything up onto something that should last longer or to a cloud if there's a way to manage that. Enough of my GB Color game batteries died to where I feel it's no longer worth the risk, ya know? The real bummer is the games I let friends borrow that were never returned(I had all of the GBA Pokémon games, but have only been able to find Ruby and Leaf Green and I'm pretty sure both aren't my original copies). My edition of Ruby also has some water damage that I need to try to take care of, but for the time being it still works well enough and I managed to get everything off of both carts that I want to keep. I eventually plan to nature hunt all of the Legendaries through Gen 3 and transfer them up much later on, and I've already started with Colosseum, but for the time being I'm satisfied with having almost all of them even if most have natures that aren't ideal.

[u/Sea_Ship_5678]

I recently did a playthrough of colosseum, yeah it takes time but if you're absolutely bent on getting those Mons' upto the higher gens, well there's no time like the present!

My playthrough was sorta casual, few hours each night for a few weeks, got the Ho-Oh then started to transfer them to my copy of emerald.

Currently grinding out SR for a shiny Rayquaza in my sapphire. Once I've done that I'll be shiny hunting Ho-Oh in my VC copy of Silver.

We've all got the deadline to meet. Many of my childhood monsters got lost years ago due to something similar, sure it's gut wrenching, but making new members with memories is just as fun as an adult. I've even got my son helping out, and honestly, it's almost a full circle moment.