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Pokémon Discussion

Gen 2 Save - Page 1

Gen 2 Save

Posted by: Pixelated_
Date: 2018-11-26 20:50:54
I dont know if this is in the right area, but I didnt know where else to put this.

I have a Pokémon Gold cartridge that saves fine.  I can start a new game, save, reset, and the save will still be there. I can let it sit for however long I want, and itll still load. However, if I remove the cartridge from the GBA, the save is gone. No message about it being corrupted or destroyed. I plan on replacing the battery, but I just want to know if this is a common occurance, or if something is wrong with the cartridge, or if Im just being an idiot.

Re: Gen 2 Save

Posted by: Parzival
Date: 2018-11-26 23:27:56
Does this also occur if the GBA is turned OFF? If so, dead battery.

Re: Gen 2 Save

Posted by: Sherkel
Date: 2018-11-26 23:43:56
Yeah, the battery's dead. There's no reason for SRAM to erase itself if you keep the game running, but as soon as it's not, it won't be retained. The game would need to be doing somethng specific to the save data for something like a message to show, but in this case it just can't keep power going to it and it disappears.

(Moving to Pokémon Discussion, but I'm glad you're paying attention to sections. It's a pretty big oversight anyway that Game Freak thought "five years is forever!"…)

Re: Gen 2 Save

Posted by: ISSOtm
Date: 2018-11-27 09:31:01
It's not really an oversight - companies prefer old games to die so people buy newer versions, remakes, what have you.
It's also cheaper, and, at the time, batteries didn't last long. (Granted, current batteries last longer, but have to sustain higher consumption…)

Re: Gen 2 Save

Posted by: Sherkel
Date: 2018-11-27 11:56:46
This is true. The Crystal re-release had its obvious other benefits too.

Re: Gen 2 Save

Posted by: ISSOtm
Date: 2018-11-28 12:34:17
Re-release? You mean the VC? What were its benefits?

Re: Gen 2 Save

Posted by: Nostalgia
Date: 2018-11-28 13:03:49
1) no battery issues

2) Celebi event

3) the ability to transfer to current gen

Re: Gen 2 Save

Posted by: Sherkel
Date: 2018-11-28 13:22:55
The Celebi event is what I had in mind when posting, though I thought they added more. The other two are only beneficial for making people buy the games again.

Re: Gen 2 Save

Posted by: IceFlame
Date: 2018-11-28 14:20:40
It's a pretty big oversight anyway that Game Freak thought "five years is forever!"…


It's not really an oversight - companies prefer old games to die so people buy newer versions, remakes, what have you.
It's also cheaper, and, at the time, batteries didn't last long. (Granted, current batteries last longer, but have to sustain higher consumption…)


Gen 2 was particularly bad because of the real-time clock feature. I wonder if they considered that when designing it.

Re: Gen 2 Save

Posted by: ISSOtm
Date: 2018-11-28 14:32:49

The Celebi event is what I had in mind when posting, though I thought they added more. The other two are only beneficial for making people buy the games again.

Minor benefits, then, I guess.
Also, I like your pragmatism. :P


Gen 2 was particularly bad because of the real-time clock feature. I wonder if they considered that when designing it.

Doubt it. Game Freak wasn't charged with designing the hardware, only selecting it. You'd probably have to blame some branch of Nintendo for that, I think.

Re: Gen 2 Save

Posted by: IceFlame
Date: 2018-11-28 14:50:41
I mean, somebody made the decision to have a real-time clock in Gen 2, and I wonder if they realised it was going to cut the battery life to less than half.

Re: Gen 2 Save

Posted by: ISSOtm
Date: 2018-11-29 00:46:22
I doubt it, but that's just personal opinion.

Re: Gen 2 Save

Posted by: Ryccardo
Date: 2018-12-11 08:07:12
They did indeed use CR2025s instead of CR1616s, though :)