The Tragic Fate That Awaits Every Pokemon Cartridge

For those of you who have been playing "Pokémon" video games for a while, you might remember the days when they were on the Game Boy. The handheld console played host to the first "Pokémon" games ever released back in 1996 and continued to be the primary platform for the franchise's mainline games for years. Eventually, the Game Boy line of handhelds would be abandoned by the "Pokémon" franchise, which would upgrade to the Nintendo DS in 2006 with the release of "Diamond" and "Pearl." However, some fans have kept their Game Boys and "Pokémon" cartridges over the years. However, they might be on borrowed time.

If your Game Boy and old "Pokémon" games have been sitting around in an attic for close to two decades, then you may have an issue with picking back up where you left off. As a matter of fact, even copies of old "Pokémon" Game Boy games may have an error in them that could spell doom for them in the long run. But what is this issue? And can it be fixed?

Back in 2015, a user on Stack Exchange reported that they had run into an issue with a "Pokémon Gold" game for the Game Boy they had recently bought. Apparently, they had played the game the previous day and saved their progress. But upon picking it back up the next day, all of their data was gone and the game only gave them the option to either start a new game or view the options menu. Confused, the user asked if this was an issue brought on from the game they picked up being a fake cartridge. However, that wasn't the case.

According to another user's reply, the "Pokémon" game was legit. The issue was that old Game Boy cartridges actually had a small battery in them that was used to maintain data when the game wasn't in use. "'Pokémon Gold' was released 15 years ago. The cartridge is very old and the battery has run out," the user reported. This means that in order for the game to continue reading saved data, the battery in the cartridge must be replaced. The battery in question is a CR2025 3V battery, which can be found on online retail sites.

So yes, your "Pokémon" games for the Game Boy will one day be caput. Thankfully, there is a way to fix it.