Gaming Gameboy Advance game authenticity

[Voltshock R]

Hey. So I found a copy of Metroid Fusion at a pawn shop the other day at a really good price. In purchasing, I forgot to ask if I could test out the game in a system at their store. I figured it would be alright, since the front and the pin connectors seemed legit.
When I finally got home and took a closer look (open up with triwing), I noticed first that it saves only with flash memory (I read that some have batteries) and that the second to last pin on the right side was slightly short than the rest (it is difficult to notice at first).
I haven't got around to testing it, due to cleaning off the sticker reside on the backside of the cartridge.
I think that it is authentic, but that pin....... Would that affect whether I could play it?

 

[Voltshock R]

 

[BatmanBeyond]

No it shouldn't affect weather or not its playable

 

[Plstic]

Definitely legit. All fake carts have batteries in them.

 

[Monty Kensicle]

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That PCB looks exactly like the copy I bought at retail so you've got an authentic game.

Definitely legit. All fake carts have batteries in them.

Not necessarily, I've found some fake Pokemon games that don't use SRAM and some legitimate GBA titles use SRAM too.

 

[jefffisher]

it's real even if it wasn't it wouldn't make a difference the only games where it matter are the pokemon ones, since time based events don't happen in ruby sapphire and emerald and pal park to the ds games don't work for any of them.

 

[hippy dave]

I'm sorry to have to tell you this but that' s not an authentic hamster, it's just a photo of one.

 

[Voltshock R]

Haha. Funny. Say is there a list on here noting all the GBA carts with SRAM Battery Saves and those with the EEPROM Flash?

 

[FAST6191]

There are four types of save, five if you include no save/password and I should mention also things like pokemon which used flash but had a battery for the onboard clock.
This is as SRAM gets split in two between the battery having SRAM and the electrically similar but no battery having FeRAM. I believe there are even some games that got reprints that used batteries first but later went to FeRAM.

Also the all fake games contain batteries thing is no longer in effect. Some fakes do other things now http://gbatemp.net/threads/is-this-a-legit-pal-copy-of-ninja-cop-ninja-five-o.390496/#post-5527912 for an example.

Anyway the advanced search on http://www.advanscene.com/ should tell you what goes. Similarly the ROM management tools (offline list is what I use but most would say it is pretty outdated) also do good stuff.

 

[Osga21]

Appears legit, all of my bootlegs have low quality casings and save to a battery(ot not at all!)

 

[Touko White]

Definitely legit, as you say some of them used batteries, some flash.
The shorter pin is probably due to some sort of damage.

The sticker also doesn't look fake: no weird fonts or whatever seem to be present.