Gaming fake Pokemon GBA carts more common than real ones; any good?

[romanaOne]

Aside from the now-infamous save problem with at least one version of fake Emerald, has anyone had any trouble with fake or hacked (Prism/Resolute/InsertRomHackNameHere) carts?

I've played about half of a fake Fire Red with no problems other than a funny error when you load a save. In spite of the error, the save loads and you can play. However, the save can not be extracted from the cart using that DS Lite GBA save extractor app. There is no error, but the extracted file is corrupt and will not work in emulators.

 

[The Catboy]

Most fake copies any game will come with future problems. A lot of them use battery saves and they come with cheap ass batteries too.

 

[migles]

i can tell, last year i spent a while (and money) to collect the GBA pokemon games..
i wanted CiB (complete in box) as possible
and from my searches like only 10 percent where actually original cartridges.
i even seen complete in box fake gba games
it was a real pain in the ass to find the official ones, specially the pictures usually are bad quality or not properly taken.. wich made me message the sellers and request good pictures..

the fastest and best way to identify theese cartridges is to ask for a picture of the back of the game.
a real one you can see the PCB with the square golden things (theese are in the front i think they are test points or PCB printing markers?) and the array of test points in the back
example of real ones: https://chieftain20.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/dsc_2182.png
https://chieftain20.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/dsc_2143.png
look at the PCB, has that TP things, the squares on the left top

while the fake ones usually (please note the usually word, doesn't mean it's always) has a line of solder balls somewhere:
https://i.imgur.com/P12Qf3h.jpg


ok, this thread is not about how to identify the fake or real gba games. but i hope it helps in your search
i am not familiar with the fake cartridges, but i rather pay high and have the real deal.. because for fakes, i can always use my GBA flashcarts..
i think it's more productive save the bucks you will spend on fake cartridges and get a gba flashcart.. specially because they work pretty well. you can have the battery issue but you will not loose the entire save (because they backup to the sd card) and even everdrive (it is not just a few bucks sadly) does a pretty good job.. specially when the battery is easily swapable..

 

[zfreeman]

Aren't the ROMs patched to remove the need for battery saving? I would much prefer not having to worry about the battery losing my save and having to replace it. Also, I think if you dump the ROM with GBA backup tool, the save is somehow integrated into it, so it will load in an emulator.

 

[Grim Ripper]

The gba games don't use the battery for saving. -_-
The battery is there for the clock (RTC) and time events (e.g: berries growing).

FireRed and LeafGreen doesn't have a battery inside the cartridge.

 

[Dend]

The gba games don't use the battery for saving. -_-
The battery is there for the clock (RTC) and time events (e.g: berries growing).

FireRed and LeafGreen doesn't have a battery inside the cartridge.

Well, the Pokemon games use the battery for time events only but I think there are other games that use it to save. There is this post from @NintendyFan that has a list of such:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/gameboy-advance-gba-games-requiring-batteries.322803/

Fire Red and Leaf Green don't have a battery because they are remakes of the Gen 1 games that did not have time based events (I may be wrong, Feel free to correct me if so)

 

[Grim Ripper]

Well, the Pokemon games use the battery for time events only but I think there are other games that use it to save. There is this post from @NintendyFan that has a list of such:
https://gbatemp.net/threads/gameboy-advance-gba-games-requiring-batteries.322803/

Fire Red and Leaf Green don't have a battery because they are remakes of the Gen 1 games that did not have time based events (I may be wrong, Feel free to correct me if so)

You are correct about FR and LG games, no time based events there.
Because there is no day/night cycle in FR/LG you had to trade Eevee in Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald in order to evolve it to Espeon (day) or Umbreon (night).


Thanks for the link to the list, i didn't know there were gba games using battery for saving.

 

[romanaOne]

I was hoping people would post their actual experiences with fake GBA (or GB, GBC) games and some pictures, rather than preach common sense caveat emptor "fake games are probably dodgy" etc. We all know that. Real games are expensive, have suffered a lot of, uh, handling, and (if the game has one) you WILL have to replace that battery probably soon. Just a handful of good, real GBA games costs almost as much as an Everdrive.

Aaaanyway I'll start:
I recently bought a Pokemon Crystal Fake that is BETTER than the original in a small way: the coin cell battery can be easily removed from a battery holder--no soldering. (Battery soldering is interesting one time, but not so much n times.) It appears to be completely save-compatible to the real game: I used Mega Memory to extract my save from a real crystal game and copy it to the fake. Works fine.

However, there is no RTC in the fake. The time in the pokegear is stuck where you set it and once in a while it jumps ahead by a day. So aprcorns and berries can still regrow. The seller had (mistakenly) claimed it was 100 percent functional and gave me a full refund of my 10 USD when I complained to him.

Anybody know where to get that battery-holder? I think it will fit in a lot of GB(C) games. I'm soldering one of those into some of my real games with dead batteries.

 

[Todderbert]

I have a Mother 3 cart, its saves well. The 20 something in 1 carts stall abit when saving in games and the roms are patched for the missing clock. Though neither has a battery.

 

[gnmmarechal]

A few of mine have that as well, it's pretty cool, better than the soldered ones.

 

[Glyptofane]

I have a fake version of Mr Driller Ace that can not run at full speed. It is especially noticeable in the timed race mode.

 

[Peeteris]

Hi there,
I thought about getting fake Pokemon Crystal, but member RomanaOne just killed my idea of getting it.
Isn't there any other fake carts with RTC? That's crucial for me.

 

[Vieela]

I've had a lot of problem with fake Pokémon GBA carts. Not saving,not loading saves,extreme slowdowns,freezings. I'd not rather recommend buy a super cheap one,they can come with several problems.

--------------------- MERGED ---------------------------

But it depends tho. If you know someone that actually sell "good fake games",it's ok. This far,i've buyed several fake games,like Mother 3,and it worked fine. But it seems like pokémon games are highly pirated for GBA and can come with several problems. (most,not all of them)

 

[Sliter]

the coin cell battery can be easily removed from a battery holder--no soldering. (Battery soldering is interesting one time, but not so much n times.)

pro tip: you can remove these holder and solder in an original game (probably, not tested but i really wanted to ...)

Anybody know where to get that battery-holder? I think it will fit in a lot of GB(C) games. I'm soldering one of those into some of my real games with dead batteries.

oh you told it already haha sorry (but lets keep like this )
well i'm looking for this too, I tried some notebook ones but still too big for the cart :/ (or smaller batteries ) maybe you can find some old pirate games that stopped working and get from them? I have no lucky where I live btw ... I use that way of removing the original battery from the clip and put a new one with tape for now :v

Funny that loooks like it work like my oldbootleg crystal , about the time at least hahah there are some lot of bugs I wanted to show the world but I don't have much how :v

I have a problem with an bootleg zelda minish but later I can post it here with some other points about bootlegs

 

[Sliter]

Generally the pirates gba carts don't need battery save anymore, they use the Sram save technology (same of the DS games) that GBA marked the change between these save sytems, which is very good, depending a recent pirate can have more quality than an original one talking about circuit and stuff, but I think some games need to have the rom edited to make it work well? (like pokes FRLG, they also had an anti piracy system that probably need to be modded on the rom)
well so I think that good quality pirates worth more than old overpriced original games... I wonder if the Pokemon ones work everything else like trading or connecting to the GC games?

I've got an bootleg minish cap that don't save, I have no idea wich is the problem here, the seller told that would send me a new one with my next purchase there...

 

[DjoeN]

Nice, i used to collect fake cartridges in the past (also multi game carts (xx in 1))
I don't do that, no time to hunt and i don't trust ebay sellers anymore