Ah pardon then, I thought you were talking about the fights near the end. Yeah, saving with the wrong timing could give you trouble there, but only if you're not rotating saves, which is pretty much standard practice for any challenging and unpredictable game. If you didn't have a save right at the beginning of the Barrens, you should have at least had one in Haven as you were preparing to leave, which is only a few minutes difference. If you were playing the whole game on one save...well, now you've learned your lesson. And really, GT is a lot less punishing on that front than a lot of games.