Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD was released in Japan this week. The title is the pioneer of Sony’s PSP Remaster Series, allowing gamers to play on-the-go via their PSP, upload their save data to their PS3 and then continue the game in HD. Rinse and repeat. However, the new technology is causing waves in the Japanese Monster Hunter community.

A number of gamers who purchased the Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD are reporting that their save files are being deleted in the process of transferring it from their PSP to the PS3. This has caused the title’s rating on Amazon to plummet. Some players are reporting losing upwards of 500 hours and giving up on the game entirely.  As a huge fan of the series, I can only imagine how devastating this must feel…

Others are blaming the issue on simple user error, as the process is somewhat complicated.  A Japanese gamer I follow on Twitter elaborated by adding that they had heard some users were accidentally transferring their Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD save file (which was of course blank) to their PSP, overwriting their hard-earned hours.

So here comes the PSA portion of this post.  To anyone who imported Monster Hunter Portable 3rd HD and plans on transferring their save file from their PSP version, here is a simple step to mitigate any save file loss:

BACKUP YOUR SAVE FILE.  Back it up everywhere.  Put a copy on your computer, a copy on your PS3, a copy on your thumb drive or portable hard-drive.  For the love of all that is holy, you cannot have too many copies!  This simple step takes hardly any time but can protect your hours of hard work.  From there it should be a simple process of trial and error.  If anyone out there figures it out and has the capabilities, a YouTube tutorial would be a great asset to the community!

Hopefully in the near future Capcom and/or Sony will step forward and provide a little more guidance to their floundering consumers.  I only hope this message reaches all the hunters out there in time, before any more innocent save files are snuffed out of existence.