Full stop. “Restart from last check point” from the battle pause screen does not do what you probably think it does. If you assume, like I did, that when a tough fight isn’t going your way, it’s your best option, you are in for a world of hurt. It doesn’t take you to the last autosave (which is what I think most players would assume it means), or even your last manual save. It takes you to your most recent change in the main story. So be warned! Take the time to either manually load or risk my fate.

After wrapping up a great time with Sargon in Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, I was finally able to dive headlong into Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth. I’m so happy to be back with Avalanche! And like most open-world, map-based games I take on, I’ve been enjoying chewing the scenery of Midgar in bite sized chunks – one story beat or side quest at a time.

This past weekend, however, time slipped away from me. Each new skirmish with some wild fiends or chance encounter with a hapless Midgardian kept me forging ahead. By the time I ran into a cluster of enemy challenges that pushed me to my limits, it had been more than two hours since visiting the main story line. As I saw Aerith, my last standing character’s HP hopelessly drop into the red, I paused the game and jumped on the aforementioned restart option.

The gut punch of seeing Cloud spawn into Bill’s Chocobo Farm, after having left it far behind, instantly killed the vibe. I logged off to refresh (and to avoid teaching my daughters some fun new vocab). Later that night, I came back with as much “it-was-fun-the-first-time” spirit as I could muster, but have been left with a bad taste in my mouth about it. So take it from me: Save scum if you need to, and if things don’t go your way, load manually. As an added bonus, you’ll probably enjoy being able to see alternate threads of the story when decision splits start coming your way.

As a further PSA, Rebirth has a number of case-sensitive pause screens. Regardless of which one you see in a moment when you want to rewind a bit, I would advise that you wait until the game allows you to open your main menu. From there, load one of your manual saves or the game’s single-use autosave slot. The autosave, unlike the last Check Point, will probably have been updated recently.

Are you playing Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth? Has this reload option burned you? Or one of the myriad ways loss-of-progress can happen in any game? Sound off in the comments or over at the Boss Rush Discord.

Featured Image: Square Enix