Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition: Transferring TOV:DE Save Data from Switch to Steam

Nintendo is notorious for locking down their hardware, we all know that. Its especially frustrating that they even hold your save data hostage to their inane subscription backup scheme. As an avid Tales of fan I wanted a way to keep all my data but get it out of Nintendo’s grubby claws. I may be a diehard Abyss player but two of the Big Three are on Steam now and that really makes me happy. I first played Vesperia on the Switch during the pandemic and always wondered if it was possible to transfer my data from my Switch to my PC, especially when the PC version would be more accessible on my Deck and to play with friends (along with better performance and customization and whatnot). Bright side, the Switch and PC versions are basically identical so this process was a lot easier than I thought it would be.

PLEASE NOTE: this guide REQUIRES (and assumes that you are familiar with) Nintendo Switch Custom Firmware (CFW). Believe me, I tried to extract the data without it, but that was before learning that game save data is stored in the system itself and not in the data on the SD card (hence only accessible via CFW). I will not be going into the specifics on how to put CFW on your Switch here but check out the Switch CFW guide online to get up to speed (not posting it here for obvious reasons). The rest of this short-ish guide will reference parts of the CFW lingo that I’ll do my best to explain (though there really isn’t much to explain on that front). I may also reference processes and steps that I took using CFW, but please do your own research on the processes involved since this IS NOT a CFW guide. This is my first guide so it’ll be very rough and not as flashy as others. Please feel free to comment anything you’d like changed or explained better.

FULL DISCLAIMER: I do not condone for-profit piracy whatsoever, only game preservation. Despite my qualms about Nintendo’s practices and willingness to engage in emulation and whatnot, I do not want anyone caught up in their bloodthirsty crackdowns on the emulation and piracy crusades. My hope is that this guide helps preserve and convert compatible Switch save data into a more useful medium, especially for such a beloved game in the Big Three of the Tales of series.

If you’ve got a CFW Switch, please proceed. Else, I’d recommend doing a one-time (albeit very involved) CFW just to grab whatever save data you wish to preserve. Also if you’ve got any other program that’ll extract/decrypt Switch saves feel free to use that too. I can, however, only make guarantees for the JKSV method as that is the one I used.

Super simple yet a bit involved.

During CFW you may remember (or actively use) a program called JKSV (JK’s Manager Switch Edition). The CFW guide should’ve had you install it during the initial process but if you don’t have it, you can find it here:

https://github.com/J-D-K/JKSV/releases

I apologize if anything sounds confusing or if I don’t explain correctly. If you’d like you may also visit: https://github.com/J-D-K/JKSV to read through the actual instruction on how to use JKSV.

1. Launch into the Homebrew launcher
   • Should be R + whatever program you’d like to use. This won’t overwrite the program or anything just use it as a medium to get into the Homebrew program
2. Navigate to JKSV and launch it
3. Locate your Vesperia data and hit A. This should bring up a menu where you can make a backup to your SD card.
4. Go through the menu, rename the backup to whatever you’d like and confirm. This should have extracted the save data and put it into
   root/JKSV/<Game Title or ID>
5. Once you’ve done steps 3 and 4 (for Vesperia and whatever other game’s data you’d like to grab while you’re in there*), exit out of JKSV.

NOTE: *While this guide will only cover Vesperia specifically, you can use Steps 3 and 4 for any other game whose save data you’d like to extract and preserve.

1. Power off, remove your SD card and insert it into your computer.
   • Alternatively, you can stay in Homebrew and navigate to the USB File Transfer icon and use that. Whatever floats your boat.
2. Navigate to:
   root/JKSV/Tales of Vesperia Definitive Edition/<backup name>
   • Naming may be different depending on what version of CFW or JKSV you’ve got running but should generally be in the same place. “Root” will be replaced by “Nintendo Switch” if you’re using the USB File Transfer method
3. In that folder should be a handful of files that look like this:
   
4. You’re only looking for the “TLSaveData0-00” file. File extension does not matter here. Grab it and navigate to:
   C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\<ID>\738540\remote
   • If you’ve got multiple save files grab those too
5. Assuming you’ve booted the game or played it somewhat, you should see your Steam save data in that folder. Notice the small difference in naming (SWITCH data uses a hyphen “-” between the numbers, whereas STEAM data uses an underscore “_”.
   • Ex: SWITCH data should look like “TLSaveData0-00”, whereas STEAM data should look like “TLSaveData0_00”)
6. Rename your SWITCH data to match how the STEAM data is named (Ex: SWITCH data: “TLSaveData0-00” –> STEAM data “TLSaveData0_00”). Basically change the hyphens to underscores. Numbers don’t matter too much here as long as you only change the last number in the file name. That number just correlates to the save slot number so realistically you can put it anywhere as long as its within Vesperia’s save slot limit.
7. If you’ve done everything correctly, those save files should show up on your next boot. Rinse and repeat for each save file you’ve transferred over from your Switch copy. After entering the transferred save, save again just to be safe (unless you’re at the Grade Shop in which case it should still work)

NOTES: You may notice a significant file size difference between your Switch and Steam data. This is normal and is due to how the Switch compresses its save data.

Really there doesn’t need to be a conclusion but I thought I’d give some closing thoughts here.

I pieced together a handful of reddit guides and took a shot in the dark as to how Vesperia handled the actual data conversion (which thankfully turned out to be just a name change). This method may or may not work for other games but YMMV. Play around with other games and post guides or something there for others. Switch games are pricey and annoying to deal with, but still a physical medium. But being able to play Vesperia on a more powerful system with better customization and whatnot is so much nicer. With Graces F, Xillia and Xillia 2 (and their DLCs) being de-listed from PSN I thought getting a head start on getting my save data off of this brick from 2017.

As I said before, this guide is strictly for game preservation purposes and shouldn’t be used for piracy. I should also mention that only a handful of achievements will pop up once you save again. Also I can only vouch for this working for Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition on the Nintendo Switch. I am not sure how Symphonia Remastered handles its save data or whether or not its compatible with Steam. Maybe someday I’ll look into it if there’s enough demand, but I currently don’t own Symphonia Remastered on the Switch and I’ve got a few good saves in the Steam version already.

Please put any feedback, comments, concerns or anything I missed below. Also feel free to post this guide anywhere else as well for maximum awareness. I will also update this guide with more pictures if possible and on request. I’ve already removed CFW from my Switch since I only wanted to get my Vesperia data off of it but will endeavor to document more of the process if I come across it in the future.

From all of us in Brave Vesperia, welcome back! Your Guild Member data has been registered (or rather re-registered) and we hope to see you in-game soon.