Gen I Pokemon games might brick soon. Gen II not too far down the line as well.

[Vy'drach]

 

If this is true, that could be kinda sad. Just wake up one day and your Gen I cartridges erase your save every time you turn off your game. Hopefully someone figures out a work for this, because while you can emulate these games, lots of people feel there's no replacement for original hardware.

[CrypticQuery]

It is actually rather simple; you just replace the button-cell battery on the board inside of the game, though it usually requires soldering skill.  It is relatively simple for NES games; I imagine the same basic principle will apply for GB games.

 

Here's a way to do it without soldering;

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj1xKzqRMJQ

[Hidi]

Holy crap, time to go find my brother's old Game Boy Colour and all his Gen I Pokemon games.

 

Hey, do we know if this effects other old game packs like N64 packs?

[CrypticQuery]

Holy crap, time to go find m brother's old Game Boy Colour and all his Gen I Pokemon games.

 

Hey, do we know if this effects other old game packs like N64 packs?

 

It only affects games that have use a battery-save inside of them; basically any pre-GBA game that has the capability of save files.  Did the N64 have a memory card? - If data is saved on that then you should be fine. 

[DoctorAllosaurus]

I lost my mons years ago. Exeggutor, Gengar, Magneton, Cloyster, Marowak, Dragonite, Feraligatr, Tyranitar, Espeon, Wobuffet, Octillery, and Houndoom all lost in that terrible incident...

[Nope.]

Happened some months ago.

The battery inside my Pokémon Gold cartridge died, and when I turned on the game, everything was gone.

[LoneWolf]

Played my Sapphire to death, it's internal battery died in a window of about 4-5 years. It's all a matter of how much and how hard you play them.

[Fox-Shot]

Just checked all five of my copies (Red, Blue x2, Yellow x2), all of them still worked.  Ironic that the Gen 1 cartridge save batteries have lasted longer than the clock batteries in Ruby and Sapphire. 

[Gene Inari]

Mmhmm. I have GB carts of Yellow and Silver that went dead quite some time ago.

[DZComposer]

Here's a way to do it without soldering;

 

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj1xKzqRMJQ

While I guess that can work in a pinch, treating that as a permanent fix will likely not go well. Electrical tape is solely designed to be an insulator, not to hold things together. If you can solder, solder it. You'll be a lot happier in the end. With the tape method, it is possible that temperature differential can cause the battery contacts to contract. If it breaks loose from the tape because of this, bye-bye saves. Also, he is using physical force to break the old solder joints. I pity the fool who fails and breaks the lead off trying.

Soldering batteries isn't hard at a soldering iron costs like $10. Even a shit solder joint will hold better than that tape. To remove old solder, pick up some desoldering wick or a solder sucker. Wick works by absorbing molder solder. A solder sucker is a small pump, kind of like a spring-loaded syringe, that sucks-up molten solder.

Here is the PROPER way to do this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wCveRmEtFM

That guy is not good at soldering, though. The soldering iron is not a paintbrush. Here is the correct soldering method:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_NU2ruzyc4

[Rusheo]

Noooo why did you have to make this thread now i wont want to play my Yellow version and Emerald version for replay value!

 

it is such a sad thing that nice things can never last forever...

[manthony_Higgs]

So what if the battery dies?  Gives me reason to beat the game in a single sitting.

[psy_commando]

Actually, my batteries in my pokémon yellow and gold died several years ago taking out my saves.. It was around 2007-2009. I lost all my level 50 pokémons

 

I remember playing yellow on my gameboy color, and then gold, I was pretty bad at it ( I still beated both of them though ) XD

But yellow was easier because unlike blue and red, you could get all the starter pokémon along with pikachu.

 

And actually I played the emulated games on my pentium 1 first, but it was lame because you couldn't trade, and my game kept crashing because I was stupid enough to run the games on a floppy drive and after a while it would loose file access or something ! In the end, I got my parents to buy me a gameboy and the game.

 

Oh, and I remember being scared pretty badly of the ghosts in the pokémon tower, lol.

And even funnier, when gold was out I traded pikachu from my pokémon yellow into gold and evolved him.. That kinda broke the suspension of disbelief for me, since for the whole game on yellow he'd refuse to evolve. XD

 

A year ago I bought used leaf green, emerald, and heart gold and a ds lite. And while the remake are much better ( they fixed the whole psychic > everything else ) I still prefer the music and sound effect of yellow and gold. Heart Gold had the worst arrangements I've ever heard ! They completely ruined the mood of the original music and made it extremely light-hearted and annoying !

 

Woops.. I got a little carried away again..

[Milkyway64]

Pokemon is pretty bad anyway nostalgia notwithstanding, and emulation is totally a good replacement.

 

Besides you can just play more recent pokemon games if you are that concerned, they are pretty much the exact same thing with map differences and shiny coats of paint.

 

This post is mostly serious, semi trolling.

[Xortberg]

Gen 1 games are bad, and only good for nostalgia. The formula is pretty solid, though, and they've been pretty much getting better with each incarnation.

 

But yeah, you're right about emulation and the newer games being all you need. Playing Pokemon Red on a Gameboy is in no way superior to using an emulator.

[Vy'drach]

Gen 1 games are bad, and only good for nostalgia. The formula is pretty solid, though, and they've been pretty much getting better with each incarnation.

 

But yeah, you're right about emulation and the newer games being all you need. Playing Pokemon Red on a Gameboy is in no way superior to using an emulator.

 

 

Debatable, as there is a lot of things to hate about the newer generations, such as the additions of new types, the new pokemon designs, story, whatever have you, really. Personally, my favourite generation overall was III, but I actually dislike most pokemon designs past generation I, with only a handful of designs I actually like, plus you could look at a pokemon then and generally tell what type it was. Now, we have fish that are dual-type ground/electric, and other mindfucks like that.

 

As for original hardware vs. emulation, also debatable. Some people, it doesn't matter to, but others, such as myself and some friends of mine, prefer the original hardware whenever possible. And it's not a matter of nostalgia, and as an example, I have never had or played on a Sega Saturn, and I haven't played the original Aliens vs. Predator ever, but if given the choice between playing it on an actual Saturn or playing it on an emulator, I'll pick the Saturn any day of the week and twice on Sunday. It's just sometimes original hardware is neither practical nor affordable, so you go with the cheaper and easier emulation. But emulation is just that, cheap; a cheap replacement that feels lacking. It's just like this type of thing:

 

 

While I'm sure it was cheaper and easier to do that than to get the trunk lock actually fixed, I really don't think I'd call this alternative "better."

 

It's all a matter of preference. For yourself and Milky, hardware doesn't matter, and that's fine, nothing wrong with that, just your preference. For someone like myself, however, it does matter, and there's nothing wrong with that, either. I've played games on an emulator then original hardware, and played games on original hardware then an emulator, and in both scenarios the emulator is just outright lacking in my opinion. The general statement that original hardware is in no way superior to emulation is a bit of a loaded statement. It might be that situation with you, but someone like me, where games are supposed to be a source of enjoyment, if the emulator version isn't as enjoyable, then guess what?

 

That means that the emulator version is inferior.

[Xortberg]

Debatable, as there is a lot of things to hate about the newer generations, such as the additions of new types, the new pokemon designs, story, whatever have you, really. Personally, my favourite generation overall was III, but I actually dislike most pokemon designs past generation I, with only a handful of designs I actually like, plus you could look at a pokemon then and generally tell what type it was. Now, we have fish that are dual-type ground/electric, and other mindfucks like that.

 

I'm not talking about the direction the games are going when I say gen 1 sucked, I mean it actually fucking sucked. I don't remember exactly where, but I recently saw a picture that pointed out the myriad bullshit bugs that made it pretty much unplayable compared to the new shit. Like how Focus Energy, a move that's supposed to make you crit more, actually cuts your own critical hit rate.

 

Gen 1 was fucking bad.

 

 

As for original hardware vs. emulation, also debatable. Some people, it doesn't matter to, but others, such as myself and some friends of mine, prefer the original hardware whenever possible. And it's not a matter of nostalgia, and as an example, I have never had or played on a Sega Saturn, and I haven't played the original Aliens vs. Predator ever, but if given the choice between playing it on an actual Saturn or playing it on an emulator, I'll pick the Saturn any day of the week and twice on Sunday. It's just sometimes original hardware is neither practical nor affordable, so you go with the cheaper and easier emulation. But emulation is just that, cheap; a cheap replacement that feels lacking. It's just like this type of thing:

 

You say it's inferior and that you enjoy the original hardware more and that it has nothing to do with nostalgia, yet you provide no objective evidence as to why it's better. You provide an inaccurate example:

 

 

 

While I'm sure it was cheaper and easier to do that than to get the trunk lock actually fixed, I really don't think I'd call this alternative "better."

 

That doesn't really hold up because this example is of an objectively inferior job of fixing a lock. Emulation - at least, anything before DS - is absolutely perfect. In some cases, it's even objectively better, as it adds extra features (speedup, how I love using you to get through unskippable cutscenes).

 

 

It's all a matter of preference. For yourself and Milky, hardware doesn't matter, and that's fine, nothing wrong with that, just your preference. For someone like myself, however, it does matter, and there's nothing wrong with that, either. I've played games on an emulator then original hardware, and played games on original hardware then an emulator, and in both scenarios the emulator is just outright lacking in my opinion. The general statement that original hardware is in no way superior to emulation is a bit of a loaded statement. It might be that situation with you, but someone like me, where games are supposed to be a source of enjoyment, if the emulator version isn't as enjoyable, then guess what?

 

That means that the emulator version is inferior.

 

And if you prefer going out of your way to play a version of a system that, in most cases, will have fewer features than if you emulated it, that's fine. But your claim that an emulator is inferior because it provides less entertainment is completely empty because you can't tell me why it's less entertaining. With very few exceptions, like trying to link Pokemon Fire Red and Leaf Green online, which is a total bitch to pull off, emulation is at all times just as good as original hardware, and with a PSP or I think even DS you can emulate portably. Hell, even though linking FR and LG online is a bitch, at least it's possible. If I was using a GBA, I wouldn't ever be able to make Fluxy my rival.

 

So no, the emulator is not inferior. You can prefer not to use one, but unless you can tell me objectively what flaws emulation has over the original system, you can't claim that one is inferior.

[DoctorAllosaurus]

For me it's not that those versions are the best, it's just that I had a lot of good memories attached to the pokemon within them. Sure I could get another Exeggutor, but it wouldn't be the same one that helped me kick ass all those years ago.

[Milkyway64]

I'd argue one flaw emulation has is it lacks the sleek portability (let's pretend the original brick-like gameboy is sleek for a moment, it was back in the day) the real systems have, but you can also easily emulate on PSP's and DS's and iphones and so on so forth.

 

Pokemon design is also very opinionated, there was a chart somewhere that showed all generations have a more or less equal amount of ridiculous looking pokemon of all categories, particularly inanimate.

[Redeemer]

If you guys want to debate, make a debate topic. Otherwise I'll lock this.

 

Also Gen 1 ftw. Love those guys. <3

[Snys93]

I think Red and Blue and Gen I Gameboy should be submitted to the Smithsonian.