The people behind Virtue's Last Reward can't seem to figure out how to patch a save-erasing bug that affects the 3DS version of the Japanese visual novel.
Publisher Aksys has posted a "workaround" for the bug, which will erase your entire game if you save while solving puzzles in the PEC room (or Crew Quarters). The workaround: don't save during that section.
Four months after release—the excellent game came out in October 2012—Aksys and Japanese development team Chunsoft still can't figure out how to fix this bug.
"I asked the production team and what I was told is that the issue itself was very complicated and investigating the issue took a considerable amount of time," an Aksys representative told me in an e-mail. "Added to that, the investigation itself required a lot of go-between with three parties involved, one of which was separated by a language barrier and time zone."
They've looked to reproduce the bug in the Japanese version of Virtue's Last Reward, but haven't been successful. Aksys says they've also checked Japanese community threads but haven't found any mentions of the glitch, which right now seems to be U.S.-exclusive.
"While we've made some progress in researching the issue alongside Spike Chunsoft and first party developers, we do not have anything as conclusive as a patch at the present time," the Aksys rep said. "We are still cooperating with the developers to find a solution, and I'll update you as soon as any more details come to light."