Is your Pokémon save about to disappear? Game Boy save batteries explained

If you still have your original Pokémon Red or Gold cartridge, there’s a good chance the save inside it is older than some of the people reading this. It’s also running on borrowed time.

Why cartridges need a battery

Many Game Boy and Game Boy Color games save to a small chip called SRAM. SRAM only holds data while it has power. To keep your save when the console is off, the cartridge has a coin cell battery soldered to its board, usually a CR2025.

Those batteries were never meant to last forever. Many have lasted 15 to 25 years, which is far longer than anyone planned for, but a lot of them are now at or past the end.

Signs your battery is dying

• The game won’t keep a new save. You save, power off, and the save is gone when you turn it back on.
• The save is missing entirely. For example, there’s no “Continue” option on the title screen of a game you know you saved.
• The clock is wrong or stopped in Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal. Those games use the same battery to run their real-time clock, so day/night and time-based events stop working properly.

The Game Boy Advance games are different

Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald store your save in flash memory, which doesn’t need power. Their battery only runs the in-game clock. When it dies, you’ll see this message:

The internal battery has run dry. The game can be played. However, clock-based events will no longer occur.

Your save is safe in that case. You’ll just lose things like berry growth and tides until the battery is replaced.

Replacing the battery without losing your save

This is the important part. On SRAM games, removing the old battery wipes the save. Pulling the battery out and popping in a new one will give you a working cartridge with an empty save file.

Here’s the safe way to do it:

1. Back up the save first. Read the save off the cartridge with a dedicated cartridge reader and keep it as a file.
2. Swap the battery. Remove the old battery and fit a new tabbed CR2025, soldered in properly. Avoid tape or a loose coin cell wedged in place.
3. Write the save back onto the cartridge and confirm it loads.
4. Keep the save file somewhere safe, so you have a backup even if something happens to the cartridge later.

Which cartridges have batteries?

As a rough guide, any Game Boy or Game Boy Color game that saves progress, rather than giving you passwords, probably has a battery. That includes the Pokémon games, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and many RPGs. Many Super Nintendo cartridges that save use the same kind of battery, usually a CR2032.

Not sure about yours? Ask us with the name of the game, and we’ll help you find out.