I got Animal Crossing New Leaf as my first AC game at midnight on release day from the eShop and have loved it ever since. I played it daily and religiously; my play records tell me I have played for 714 hours. I was actually putting the finishing touches on my town before putting the series down until the next installment. Being so involved in the game, I started to backup my SD card data onto my computer everyday just in case.
Today, I was opening up my town and saw Isabelle, as per usual, with that loading screen, which I know to also be a save screen for any of the daily changes. However, I had turned off my console without saving and I was worried for the consequences on my town, considering I saw a new plot of land, so I thought this was the moment my backup was made for. I deleted what was on the SD Card and copied and pasted the last backup data, from the night before. When I put the SD card back in and started up the game, I was a little worried because I saw a villager I had never seen before exit his house and walk around a town that had no hybrids (my town being covered in them). As I pressed A, I saw an alarmingly red window, as opposed to the soothing, soft blue that usually shows up on loading screens, that read something along the lines of "this save data cannot be used because it is not the last data saved." Through confusion and frustration, I just hit the A button and it asked me something I do not remember and I very foolishly agreed to, and I saw "Reformating..." with that mocking loading circle. I gave up on trying to restore the previous night's save and realized part of the save must attach to the 3DS's internal memory so that players cannot take advantage of storing items in other towns, restoring old saves, and essentially copying items. I used a deleted files recovery program to look for the save from when I first had to turn off the game without saving, the last time the game worked. Not a single salvageable file from today could be found. I have a feeling that even if I could find one, the status of "reformatted" would have been saved to the 3DS's internal memory and that save would not work either.
Ideas? If no ideas, I am probably just going to cry in bed for 714 hours and not touch Animal Crossing until Animal Crossing U.
It is an amazing thing that Nintendo could make a game where the player could really feel like they are a part of this town and it is a real place, but since it is still technology, things could still go wrong, and when raw human emotions and technology failures combine, it is quite heart-breaking.
If anyone wants to see how much time I put into my town, for a dream updated a month ago, I'm mayor Arix from Hyoyeon.