The easiest way to identify a fake Pokemon Game Boy Game is to see if it has the four small metallic rectangles through the back of the cartridge. I have never seen a fake cartridge that had this. For an example, you can see it on Elliot's legit copy of Emerald at 2:45, at the top left of the cartridge. All 11 GB, GBC, and GBA Pokemon games have this, and it is visible through all of the cartridges (although seeing it through the translucent ones is easier).
This is good information. When I go to retro conventions to look for GBA games, I always take one of my own with me to compare. Sometimes I get very strange eyes from some sellers. You'd be surprised to find out how many fake cardridges are sold there.
Yeah i believe the GBA has the most fakes out of all consoles and platforms? I may be wrong, so don't quote me on that haha! We dont have any conventions like that, would be awesome though.
Comment from "spiderobert" on Reddit: the "flat pack" design as you called it isn't actually an indication of it being fake. I have an original Leaf Green that I got through Nintendo Power and it had that design. The back of it is also glossy while the front is foil, but the "glossy" face should only be on the back, bottom and right sides, not on the top like it is on yours. There is also that address on the official box. The misaligned print and the spelling errors show that the box is definitely fake, but not for all the reasons you mentioned. Also one thing that you didn't mention is that the Leaf Green cartridge is actually the wrong shade of green, the legit copies were more opaque and a lighter shade
Some things I thought were worth mentioning: 2:24: The font for the Pokémon Company logo on the LG cart is wrong. It looks like some generic font, rather than the correct one on the Red Rescue Team box there. 2:38: A big red flag here, the AGB-004 model number is for a battery charger. AGB-002 is the model number for a Game Pak case (you can see it when you hold up the Emerald cart). 4:23: Another red flag, FireRed and LeafGreen should not have batteries. Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald have batteries for utilizing a real time clock feature. FR/LG do not use a real time clock, and thus, do not have batteries. The save file for all the games is kept on internal flash storage, not with a battery. This is why R/S/E keep their save files when the battery goes, it's two separate things. As far as I know, R/S/E are the only games that have these batteries (probably wrong on this), so presence of a battery on any game other than those is proof that it's a fake. EDIT: Someone else pointed this out. Whoops. Good video anyways. Like to see more!
Hi Elliot, I just fired up my copy of Leaf Green and there is a green line at the top so the dump is accurate in that respect. Interesting enough is that your fake copy has an internal save battery for sram saves while the real copy uses a flash chip to store the save. This was done to save cost since a flash chip is more expensive than sram. For the sapphire, ruby, and emerald versions the battery is for the internal real time clock and not actually used for the save file (which once again uses a flash chip).
Thanks for the awesome comment! Very interesting, do you think my copy was made "back in the day" as oppose to the modern ones? Hence why it has a box?
Honestly I never knew any of the fakes even came with boxes since I always see them as loose carts. It's hard to tell when it was made but if you were interested you could lift the battery and read the date code off the sram chip underneath and that will give you an idea. As for the daughterboard the only useful info I can glean from the sticker is that it is a 128 megabit chip which has exactly enough space to fit the 16 MB rom for leafgreen. My guess is that it is a general purpose board they made for all the clone games and they just one time program it or use a cheap asic and just jump the solder points on the right depending on the size or features of the game. The other chip on board right below the sram chip is likely the memory controller which allows the bus to select between the memory space of the sram and the game rom. Sorry for rambling I'm just fascinated by the cost cutting and engineering aspects of these clone devices.
Wow, i hardly understood any of that haha, but thank you for the dedication of typing that all out bro! It does need a new battery, so when i replace it i will make sure i slow the video down, so you can read the top of the chip!
I bought 3 of what I thought were legit carts at the Yongsan Electronics Market. The reproduction carts seem to have become more sophisticated. I checked the bottom of the cart and the writings lined up, the label was pretty detailed. It wasn't until I opened up and saw the black glob that I found out that they were fake.
How well do they play? The sell reproductions on aliexpress... etc. and make no bones about it. Minus the collection value, would you say they play okay?
From what I have played on mine it seems to be ok, but the battery is dead, so for all I know the battery is not making a connection and is broken somewhere down the line, it it's just dead. I will make a video replacing the batter in the next couple of weeks!
The downsides of bootleg pokemon games are the inability to transfer pokemon from gen 3 gba to gen 4 ds, easily gets crashes, and most rely on save batteries(unable to save after a long time) instead of a solid memory.
I have a reproduction/bootleg cart of the original Pokemon green and it to my surprise works and it saves but it only has a couple of issues. 1. Some of the trainer's Pokemon cry is wrong but I only encounter this a few times 2. officer jenny that doesn't let you pass because she's thirsty let's you pass because she thinks you already have the drink even though you don't but besides that its the same. In fact I think that the seller purposely made officer jenny passable without the drink to make it easier for the consumer but tbh I find it kind of annoying
The cartridge seems to be much more transparent than it should be (at least much more than mine). But the top green line in the main screen also appears in mine, witch I'm pretty sure is legit. Didn't see any misspellings in the back apart from the one you pointed out, but english is not my main language, so I maybe skipped something :) Nice video! Glad you liked the idea of the comparison! :)
Yeah was a pretty nice idea, little bit of an unusual thing to do on my channel, but if people want to suggest video ideas, then i'm all for it :) The cart feels very cheap, which is something i should of mentioned.
Hahaha, you did a pretty good approach! The /i/ in "*siete" should be audible, but it was pretty good! :) "Ventisiete" is just "twenty seven" in spanish... Maybe I'll change it, it'll make things easier for non-spanish people ;) (nah, my surname is not twenty seven... is just a fake one :D)
Lucked out and got a Leaf Green for $56 on Mercari from someone that seemed to be selling all their old games. Just arrived today and brought it to work, so wasn't able to open it up yet. But using a light to peer in the left chip is vertical and very flat and there is no battery. The cart itself looks rather well used and there are no misspellings or strange font/alignment issues. It has the four little metal squares on the back top left and the front has an imprinted 09 to the right. The cart is translucent but still a bit opaque and rather vibrantly colored compared to the fake here. Been waiting years to snag a copy and so glad I did.. seems to be legit! Used this vid to double check for any other potential issues, thankfully don't notice them. The save file was at the very beginning after the seller chose a pokemon and not the "test name 0:00" time you see other fake carts seem to have. There's also no message stating "Previously saved file will be loaded" Which also seems to be a sign of a bootleg.
i have a copy of pokemon ruby i bought off ebay for 4.91nzd including shipping the cart and even the board and sticker look the same as original only the color of the cart is slightly different if you did not have the real cart on hand its hard to tell if its fake unless you put into a gba it will give you a message like game cannot be played or something like that but still works and saves 100% fine these bootleggers are getting really good these days
I've got that exact Leafgreen bootleg and through experience and research there are a few things about it you didn't mention: 1. The message about the battery after pressing start is only found in bootlegs. Original Firered/Leafgreen carts didn't show that message (at least not legit USA copies) 2. The bootleg versions are prone to losing their save files. Also, legit Firered/Leafgreen carts don't have the internal battery like RSE carts do if I remember correctly (the battery was for keeping time for the growth of berries and other time based events, which FRLG didn't have). It'd be interesting to see you try to trade Pokemon between a legit and bootleg GBA game, and between bootlegs. It'd probably just wipe the memory of the fake, but I've never tried it so who knows. (Trying to trade forward to a legit DS game wipes the memory on the fake.)
By 'wipe the memory' I mean the save file, not the actual game. The bootleg will still work you'll just lose all your progress :P Poor word choice on my part.
+Elliot Crespel You should show us how to replace the battery on a Gameboy Advance game using the LeafGreen cartridge you got. As long as it saves afterwards and has no glitches it's a good fake
The easiest way to identify a fake Pokemon Game Boy Game is to see if it has the four small metallic rectangles through the back of the cartridge. I have never seen a fake cartridge that had this. For an example, you can see it on Elliot's legit copy of Emerald at 2:45, at the top left of the cartridge. All 11 GB, GBC, and GBA Pokemon games have this, and it is visible through all of the cartridges (although seeing it through the translucent ones is easier).
Derek Jansz thnx bro
This is good information. When I go to retro conventions to look for GBA games, I always take one of my own with me to compare. Sometimes I get very strange eyes from some sellers. You'd be surprised to find out how many fake cardridges are sold there.
Yeah i believe the GBA has the most fakes out of all consoles and platforms? I may be wrong, so don't quote me on that haha!
We dont have any conventions like that, would be awesome though.
+Elliot Crespel Yeah it does have the most fakes though fakers are getting better with all GBA games
Comment from "spiderobert" on Reddit:
the "flat pack" design as you called it isn't actually an indication of it being fake. I have an original Leaf Green that I got through Nintendo Power and it had that design. The back of it is also glossy while the front is foil, but the "glossy" face should only be on the back, bottom and right sides, not on the top like it is on yours. There is also that address on the official box. The misaligned print and the spelling errors show that the box is definitely fake, but not for all the reasons you mentioned.
Also one thing that you didn't mention is that the Leaf Green cartridge is actually the wrong shade of green, the legit copies were more opaque and a lighter shade
ha. I was just about to copy my comment over :P
No worries, i got you!
Is the leaf green genuine if it doesn’t have a battery ? I’ve been told my cartridge is fake due to it not having an internal battery
Some things I thought were worth mentioning:
2:24: The font for the Pokémon Company logo on the LG cart is wrong. It looks like some generic font, rather than the correct one on the Red Rescue Team box there.
2:38: A big red flag here, the AGB-004 model number is for a battery charger. AGB-002 is the model number for a Game Pak case (you can see it when you hold up the Emerald cart).
4:23: Another red flag, FireRed and LeafGreen should not have batteries. Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald have batteries for utilizing a real time clock feature. FR/LG do not use a real time clock, and thus, do not have batteries. The save file for all the games is kept on internal flash storage, not with a battery. This is why R/S/E keep their save files when the battery goes, it's two separate things. As far as I know, R/S/E are the only games that have these batteries (probably wrong on this), so presence of a battery on any game other than those is proof that it's a fake. EDIT: Someone else pointed this out. Whoops.
Good video anyways. Like to see more!
Wait I have a sapphire with AGB-002 on the back what does that mean?
another interesting thing i've noticed is that official gba games have a small number imprinted in the label that fakes tend not to replicate
Hi Elliot, I just fired up my copy of Leaf Green and there is a green line at the top so the dump is accurate in that respect. Interesting enough is that your fake copy has an internal save battery for sram saves while the real copy uses a flash chip to store the save. This was done to save cost since a flash chip is more expensive than sram. For the sapphire, ruby, and emerald versions the battery is for the internal real time clock and not actually used for the save file (which once again uses a flash chip).
Thanks for the awesome comment! Very interesting, do you think my copy was made "back in the day" as oppose to the modern ones? Hence why it has a box?
Honestly I never knew any of the fakes even came with boxes since I always see them as loose carts. It's hard to tell when it was made but if you were interested you could lift the battery and read the date code off the sram chip underneath and that will give you an idea. As for the daughterboard the only useful info I can glean from the sticker is that it is a 128 megabit chip which has exactly enough space to fit the 16 MB rom for leafgreen. My guess is that it is a general purpose board they made for all the clone games and they just one time program it or use a cheap asic and just jump the solder points on the right depending on the size or features of the game. The other chip on board right below the sram chip is likely the memory controller which allows the bus to select between the memory space of the sram and the game rom. Sorry for rambling I'm just fascinated by the cost cutting and engineering aspects of these clone devices.
Wow, i hardly understood any of that haha, but thank you for the dedication of typing that all out bro! It does need a new battery, so when i replace it i will make sure i slow the video down, so you can read the top of the chip!
+Elliot Crespel It's probably one of the early fakes from 2005/6 though you can find this out if you take off the sticker
Do the fake ones crash easily?
Thanks for this video, regards from Spain 🇪🇸
I bought 3 of what I thought were legit carts at the Yongsan Electronics Market. The reproduction carts seem to have become more sophisticated. I checked the bottom of the cart and the writings lined up, the label was pretty detailed. It wasn't until I opened up and saw the black glob that I found out that they were fake.
The terrifying black blob of inevitable cheap fate.
That Leaf Green is so laughably fake
I know right!
Very big Fake, original Pokemon Leaf green have Not Save Battery
How well do they play? The sell reproductions on aliexpress... etc. and make no bones about it. Minus the collection value, would you say they play okay?
From what I have played on mine it seems to be ok, but the battery is dead, so for all I know the battery is not making a connection and is broken somewhere down the line, it it's just dead. I will make a video replacing the batter in the next couple of weeks!
The downsides of bootleg pokemon games are the inability to transfer pokemon from gen 3 gba to gen 4 ds, easily gets crashes, and most rely on save batteries(unable to save after a long time) instead of a solid memory.
I have a reproduction/bootleg cart of the original Pokemon green and it to my surprise works and it saves but it only has a couple of issues. 1. Some of the trainer's Pokemon cry is wrong but I only encounter this a few times 2. officer jenny that doesn't let you pass because she's thirsty let's you pass because she thinks you already have the drink even though you don't but besides that its the same. In fact I think that the seller purposely made officer jenny passable without the drink to make it easier for the consumer but tbh I find it kind of annoying
The cartridge seems to be much more transparent than it should be (at least much more than mine). But the top green line in the main screen also appears in mine, witch I'm pretty sure is legit.
Didn't see any misspellings in the back apart from the one you pointed out, but english is not my main language, so I maybe skipped something :)
Nice video! Glad you liked the idea of the comparison! :)
Yeah was a pretty nice idea, little bit of an unusual thing to do on my channel, but if people want to suggest video ideas, then i'm all for it :) The cart feels very cheap, which is something i should of mentioned.
Did i get your name right? haha
Hahaha, you did a pretty good approach! The /i/ in "*siete" should be audible, but it was pretty good! :)
"Ventisiete" is just "twenty seven" in spanish... Maybe I'll change it, it'll make things easier for non-spanish people ;) (nah, my surname is not twenty seven... is just a fake one :D)
Lucked out and got a Leaf Green for $56 on Mercari from someone that seemed to be selling all their old games. Just arrived today and brought it to work, so wasn't able to open it up yet. But using a light to peer in the left chip is vertical and very flat and there is no battery.
The cart itself looks rather well used and there are no misspellings or strange font/alignment issues. It has the four little metal squares on the back top left and the front has an imprinted 09 to the right. The cart is translucent but still a bit opaque and rather vibrantly colored compared to the fake here. Been waiting years to snag a copy and so glad I did.. seems to be legit!
Used this vid to double check for any other potential issues, thankfully don't notice them. The save file was at the very beginning after the seller chose a pokemon and not the "test name 0:00" time you see other fake carts seem to have. There's also no message stating "Previously saved file will be loaded" Which also seems to be a sign of a bootleg.
i have a copy of pokemon ruby i bought off ebay for 4.91nzd including
shipping the cart and even the board and sticker look the same as
original only the color of the cart is slightly different if you did not
have the real cart on hand its hard to tell if its fake unless you put
into a gba it will give you a message like game cannot be played or
something like that but still works and saves 100% fine these bootleggers are
getting really good these days
I've seen them on eBay for really cheap like you say, hard to find genuine ones these days!
I've got that exact Leafgreen bootleg and through experience and research there are a few things about it you didn't mention: 1. The message about the battery after pressing start is only found in bootlegs. Original Firered/Leafgreen carts didn't show that message (at least not legit USA copies) 2. The bootleg versions are prone to losing their save files. Also, legit Firered/Leafgreen carts don't have the internal battery like RSE carts do if I remember correctly (the battery was for keeping time for the growth of berries and other time based events, which FRLG didn't have). It'd be interesting to see you try to trade Pokemon between a legit and bootleg GBA game, and between bootlegs. It'd probably just wipe the memory of the fake, but I've never tried it so who knows. (Trying to trade forward to a legit DS game wipes the memory on the fake.)
That's very interesting, thank you for your comment, hopefully people will be more educated, including myself, about fake-bootleg carts!
By 'wipe the memory' I mean the save file, not the actual game. The bootleg will still work you'll just lose all your progress :P Poor word choice on my part.
No problem bro! Do you like the repair videos aswell? Or only an interest in bootlegs? - Would be nice to know.
how much did you pay to get the game in the box
Cant remember mate, was a while ago. Sorry!
I've seen many fakes of game boy & ds games. I have a fake copy of emerald. You should do a video of fake 4th & 5th gen Pokemon games.
Thanks for the internet bro! If I get any games from that category I will make a video on them! I do enjoy fake games haha.
thanks for the info video
Spelling mistakes? You mean "engrish"? XD
Pokémon LeafGreen is a great game
Yeah its awesome!
+Elliot Crespel You should show us how to replace the battery on a Gameboy Advance game using the LeafGreen cartridge you got. As long as it saves afterwards and has no glitches it's a good fake
Yeah i will be doing the battery replacements soon!
+Elliot Crespel Great I can't wait to watch it. If you find anymore fakes post about them because some are great quality
I will do!
:D