Might and Magic III SNES Game-Breaking Glitch

[Guest]

So I’ve never played M&MIII before and don’t own it currently, but I’ve found out about some random glitch that occurs that wipes out all save data. Does that glitch happen frequently, and what causes it?

[Reed Rothchild | 9,547]

@GamerSmith548 Lucky you, you've come to the right place because I can tell you ALL about that glitch...

Here's an excerpt from the writeup I did a few years ago:

Oh, and the bugs… Jesus H. the bugs. I mean, one of them is a relatively common one that you will encounter every 5-10 hours or so, and is triggered by one of the actions you will perform thousands upon thousands of times during the course of the playthrough. What does this bug do? Lock up your game.

...oh, and wipe your save…

Yes, you read that correctly, and yes I’m sure I know what I’m talking about. I know, because it’s mentioned anecdotally across the internet. And because I have personally been hit by it a number of times. It destroyed my first playthrough of the game.

Which means the actual cartridge is basically a brick. Only good for toying around, or seeing the first few hours of the game with. If you want to play this game, you have to emulate. End of story. Not that 99% of my readers aren’t probably doing that already, since they’re also not crazy enough to collect a full SNES cart set like myself, but I digress…

Oh, and then there’s the bug where many of the cleric upgrades don’t actually work, and only upgrade your sorcerers (something I didn’t notice until it was far too late), which causes some severe fuckery with your healers being underpowered… but hey, it could be worse. Like, wiping your save worse.

[Reed Rothchild | 9,547]

And to clarify, the action is some combination of moving backwards on the world map while firing someone's bow.  You will do this 100,000 times in a playthrough.

[Tabonga | 2,323]

Sounds like an ideal candidate to boost up to mega collector status - they likely won't actually play it anyway so such flaws are moot.

As an aside I have a complete copy (with map although the map is from the PC version - the SNES version didn't have one).  Never actually got around to trying to play it though.

I once had one of the SNES Ultimas irretrievably lock up my game.   I think it was Runes of Virtue.

[Daniel_Doyce | 475]

You can't start a new game and save over the old one? I don't get how it can get permanently bricked

[Reed Rothchild | 9,547]

45 minutes ago, Daniel_Doyce said:

You can't start a new game and save over the old one? I don't get how it can get permanently bricked

Not sure who you're asking, but yes you can start new games in M&M3.  You just have no prayer at getting them anywhere.

[Daniel_Doyce | 475]

5 hours ago, Reed Rothchild said:

Not sure who you're asking, but yes you can start new games in M&M3.  You just have no prayer at getting them anywhere.

Maybe I'm just slow, but why not? Is it a matter of not triggering the glitch again, or an issue with the saved game?

[Sumez | 2,966]

Yeah I was confused by the wording too. I don't think Reed meant the cartridge is bricked in the traditional sense. Just that you can't realistically complete the game on one?

That said, I'm pretty sure there must be a way to circumvent the glitch. There's no way no one has done a deep dive into exactly what triggers it (clearly it can't be *just* that action if it doesn't trigger it every time)