Pokemon Red game breaking glitch

[JaidenSchmaiden]

So about sometime near the beginning of the summer I bought the three american pokemon games for the original gameboy (Red, Blue, and Yellow) and I've been mostly playing Yellow and Blue. I just recently started playing Red, trying my best to level up my pokemon to at least level 20. I achieved this after I got my helix fossil and then went to the nearest pokemon center to drop off the pokemon I caught in the cave (since I've been trying to collect all 150). Just before I entered that cave I went to the pokecenter just outside of it's entrance to drop off a few TMs. This is when I first noticed something was wrong with my game, as several off the TMs I collected were missing. I wasn't too upset about it until I went to deposit the pokemon I caught in the previous route. for some reason all the pokemon in that box had something strange happen to their names. The majority of them were blank, just an empty space where I could put my cursor. Upon further inspection I realized I could still select them, when I did I was able to see the stats of the pokemon but their names were blank. Some of the pokemon in the box had a similar issue but instead of having no name it was just a bunch of jumbled symbols from the game, same thing as the ones with the blank names, I was able to see their stats and see which pokemon they were. At first I was a little taken aback, I was worried something had happened to the game that might make it unplayable. Of course me being the idiot I am, thought I should keep playing. After all, I payed 50 dollars for it online, I wanted to be able to relive my childhood. So of course I proceeded to play the game, I got my helix fossil and left the cave. I went to the nearest pokemon center to drop off my new pokemon when I saw the same glitch happening to the pokemon I just put in that box. I went to click on one of the ones with a jumbled name and it crashed the game, showing nothing but a red screen. When I turned my GBA off and back on, all of my game data had been erased, and I'm not joking when I say this but I seriously felt like crying. I know that a glitch like this can happen when you catch Missingno but I had literally just left the cave with the fossils in it so I wasn't far enough in the game to even catch Missingno. I pulled out the cart to see if it was broken and that's when I noticed that it was a reproduction cart. I could see through the bottom of the cart and inside (which isn't normal for any cartridge) and that's when I became even more upset. Looking back I can't believe I didn't notice a difference between the one I bought and the other games I had. The cart was way lighter than the other ones and the plastic was way different. even the sticker looked brand new. Anyways, I was posting this because I wanted to know if their was a way to stop this glitch or if their was something that I did to cause it? Is this common for repocarts? And how much of my freetime did I waste leveling up my Nidoking?

 

[Gamemaster1379]

Definitely a bit on you for not doing due dilligence on inspecting the cart more readily.

The save sounds just like the data didn't commit correctly. Those things tend to use cheap hardware and not the best QA, so they're error prone to data corruption. The games themselves don't have a lot of good sanity checks, either.

Depending on how you feel about it, you could consider creating a new save and PkHexing it to at least recreate the pokemon you lost and inject that into an authentic cart or emulated game.

 

[Olmectron]

Repro carts are usually more prone to fail when saving, maybe you just got a defective one, since they usually work great, depending on the manufacturer, of course.

Maybe not a popuplar opinion, but you could try getting a 3DS or 2DS (they usually go second hand from USD$50 to USD$150), then buy the digital versions there, They're around $7 each. And if you mod your 3DS with homebrew, you could even backup your saves easily to anywhere else, so you don't lose it if the system fails with time.

 

[JaidenSchmaiden]

Repro carts are usually more prone to fail when saving, maybe you just got a defective one, since they usually work great, depending on the manufacturer, of course.

Maybe not a popuplar opinion, but you could try getting a 3DS or 2DS (they usually go second hand from USD$50 to USD$150), then buy the digital versions there, They're around $7 each. And if you mod your 3DS with homebrew, you could even backup your saves easily to anywhere else, so you don't lose it if the system fails with time.

I hacked my 3ds when I was younger to have Blue on it, I just prefer a legitimate experience over an emulated one.

 

[Olmectron]

I hacked my 3ds when I was younger to have Blue on it, I just prefer a legitimate experience over an emulated one.

I mean, it's legitimate enough if you buy the Virtual Console releases that Nintendo released, but I understand your point about actual hardware.

Sadly, even original carts' batteries will fail with time, and the saves will be gone. It was sad when my full Pokémon Blue pokédex faded away because I didn't get to backup my original cart before the battery died.

 

[JaidenSchmaiden]

Definitely a bit on you for not doing due dilligence on inspecting the cart more readily.

The save sounds just like the data didn't commit correctly. Those things tend to use cheap hardware and not the best QA, so they're error prone to data corruption. The games themselves don't have a lot of good sanity checks, either.

Depending on how you feel about it, you could consider creating a new save and PkHexing it to at least recreate the pokemon you lost and inject that into an authentic cart or emulated game.

sounds too fancy for my level of knowledge.

 

[Gamemaster1379]

sounds too fancy for my level of knowledge.

PkHex has a nice graphical interface and a lot of validity checks. It's actually quite hard to get wrong.

Harder part would be getting the save to its destination.

If 3DS, you can homebrew it and inject with Checkpoint.
If original hardware you'll need an actual copy of the game with a good battery and hardware to inject and extract saves. Either an N64 + flash cart and Game Pak for GBC games, or special PC hardware for GB carts.