Pokémon Crystal debacle - help!

[TensOfThousands]

Let me preface this by saying that I am utterly out of my depth and have no clue what I’m doing. My husband is a Pokémon nut - has been playing for as long as I’ve known him. His favorite team, to which he was extremely attached, was on a gameboy color edition of Crystal. Years ago he realized the cartridge battery had died and that his team was lost. He was genuinely devastated. They were his friends. Is there anyone or any way to access the data on that cartridge? I’d love to be able to find a way to give them back to him. Is there any hope?

 

[M7L7NK7]

No, the battery is dead so the save is gone

 

[rantex92]

nope but u can dump a new save then make him the "same" team with pkhex (i think that would be a legitimate case) and flash the save back onto the gbcard

 

[ghjfdtg]

Unfortunately no. Once SRAM loses power the data is gone forever. It can't be recovered.

 

[SaulFabre]

There is no way for restore a save file with the battery dead.

The battery gives energy to the saving chip for keep the save file info, and when it gets dead, the save info will be lost forever.

As far as I know the battery is required for power the save chip if the saving chip is SRAM (SRAM+battery), because i didn't see any battery looking at PCBs (motherboards) of games which use EEPROM for saving (some Nintendo 64 games, some Game Boy Advance games).

EDIT: Pokémon Crystal is made for Game Boy Color (GBC), not GBA (but it is still compatible with GBA though)

 

[Detroitguy22]

Any one else want to answer the question as well lmao, do you all even read the posts before you? It was answered in the first reply ffs lmao

 

[SaulFabre]

Any one else want to answer the question as well lmao, do you all even read the posts before you? It was answered in the first reply ffs lmao

i was just aclarating it and adding some info that was not told here

 

[Axido]

Did someone already mention that a dead battery means that the save is lost forever?

Jk, though in case you don't know about it already, you can at least open up the cartridge and carefully replace the battery with a new one. That won't bring back the save file, but you won't be stuck with a game that is unable to save your progress anymore... for the next fifteen to twenty years that is.

 

[KleinesSinchen]

i was just aclarating it and adding some info that was not told here

There is yet something else missing: Second generation Pokemon games all include a real time clock (RTC) which needs way more power than SRAM. Nintendo knew this. Most older Game Boy (Color) games with a save feature have a CR1616 backup battery while Pokemon Gold/Silver/Chrystal have a CR2025 which has roughly three times the capacity. I have a lot of GB games dating back to as early as 1991 or 1992 with their tiny CR1616 still keeping SRAM alive after roughly three decades.
(S)NES and N64 use CR2032 which are even a little thicker, possibly because there is simply more room in big carts. Legend of Zelda I from the 1980s is still on the first battery.

Long story short: Nintendo knew very well what they were doing when including a CR2025 for the RTC (CR1616 could have resulted in A LOT of warranty claims since the small batteries would have died very fast). Nintendo knew that they would cause many tears some years after the release of gen 2.

As GBAtemp's Backup Reminder, I'll have to give the advise to backup important data for the future. Nowadays there are plenty of possibilities to deal with the SRAM problem:

• Playing with a flashcart backing up the saves to PC from time to time
• Playing on emulators (including official 3DS Virtual Console release)
  • Don't forget to backup the saves with Checkpoint/JKSM on 3DS. SDs go bad all the time!
• Trading important Pokemon to another cart, replacing battery, trading back
• Backing up SRAM from retail cart before the battery gives up. Warning sign: Clock does not advance anymore when Game Boy is off (or clock runs veeeery slowly). SRAM can still hold the save when the battery is on its last leg (1.5V instead of the nominal 3V can still work - such a battery will drop to 0V in some weeks.)
  • Everdrive on N64 + Transfer pack
  • Specialized hardware dumper
  • Game Boy Audio dumper (not easy, backup only, no restore to retail cart)

 

[Axido]

While we`re at it, apparently Pokémon Stadium games on N64 store their saves on a flashRAM without any need for a battery. So, theoretically you could at least store your Gen I and II mons on a Pokémon Stadium 2 cartridge, though that's only a viable solution if you already have an N64, the game and a Transfer Pak.