I completely understand the "Enhanced" versions of the games like Crystal, Emerald, Platinum, etc. being a bit overpriced since they didn't sell as well but c'mon, almost all of these games sold over 15 million copies per generation. It shouldn't be expensive
@@Frozen_Ketchup fire red, leaf green, ruby, sapphire are not that expensive, I paid $20 for a legit copies. I still cannot find Emerald at reasonable price, because demand is high and an amount of legit copies is small.
I mean I have these same 5 from amazon and I really like them. I have over 100 hours on each cart and I've never had any issues. Not really sure how long they last, but for the past 6 months they've worked perfectly. They trade fine to both original copies and between the repros themselves. And realistically, I'd rather pay $40 for the nostalgia of all 5 games rather than over $100 per copy of a 20y/o original.
Just making the save isn’t enough to tell if the save function works or not, you gotta restart the game and see if the save file is still there! Anyways, I thought those fakes looked pretty legit until I saw em side by side with the authentic copies after which it’s pretty obvious they’re fake
Even though there are fakes out there. It enables people who don't have enough money to be able to play the games. Not all of us can afford to spend 60 plus dollars on a real game.
Tbh with the fact that the carts don’t fit properly it’s a hazard to your game boy. You’re better off getting a flash cart that can handle saves like an ever drive and putting the games on there if you can’t afford the real thing (most of us can’t just throw away $60 for a game any day, retro or modern). But the best option is to save up and get it, put away $10 a week or every other week even, and you’ll be there in no time.
@@BigTrees4evernot everyone lives in a 1st world country where $10 is a small amount of money. We people from poor countries wanna play games too after a day of hard work at the rice fields
in my country to own the original game is like 4/10 of the minimal wage on a 20 years old game that didnt have a translation for my lenguage is kinda sussy
A big issue with the fake R/S/E games not mentioned here is that usually there's no real time clock, which is essential for berries. Edit: I should mention that it's more than just berries. Mirage Island, Espeon/Umbreon, any time based event whatsoever. If that's fine with you then cool, but just saying that the repros are not exact duplications.
My argument for repos is that authentic copies are so expensive. I get my repos at about $10 each vs $60-$90 for a real one. I paid a cheap price, I get a cheap product. However this argument only works as long as repros are marketed as such. When they're labeled as authentic and sold as such, it's a scam. Through and through. These games are over 10 years old, some older, by buying authentic, I'm not giving my money to Game Freak, I'm giving my money to some guy. By buying repos, I'm not taking money from Game Freak, they don't sell authentic anymore anyway. So I'm still giving my money to some guy. Lastly, (though this point may not apply to the repo situation as much, but it's still something of note.) piracy is usually a customer service problem. When the authentic copy of a game is too much, or the service behind it isn't worth the price, etc. People pirate. But people go with the most convenient route (of course there's exceptions but follow me here), when Netflix got into streaming, so many people stopped pirating any and all forms of film. But when Hulu, and Disney + and this service and that service came along, streaming got so difficult and convoluted, people went back to pirating. Pirating and repros will always exist, don't fight it, instead make sure it's happening for the right reasons and they're not just scamming people by labeling pirated copies as legit and selling them as such.
@Flamester2 yeah. But emulation on my phone for DS games is clunky, I'd rather pay for the cartridge to play on my handheld. I own it to be more than a paper weight.
@Flamester2 I'm talking about both. Although I'm more likely to emulate GBA games. I do quite often. Though, I do have a couple repros for my DS lite and Gameboy advance SP
@@thedeagle1007in my experience playing ds games on cheap crappy sub-$50 android phones and 5 year old Amazon tablets, the emulator runs flawlessly and the touch screen actually works. With a Bluetooth snes controller hooked up, it’s pretty close to the original. Though I’ll always prefer playing on the original hardware for nostalgia, and will when possible, for the times I was stuck without a ds and wanting to play Pokémon or Zelda, this worked just fine. Now if only I could do all this on my iPhone without jailbreaking it.
I remember going on a binge buying all the pokemon games from the GB to DS, and god was I devastated when I realized a good half of the lot was fake. Never using Mercari again lol
It's also worth noting that none of the dual slot features of reproductions work with the DS games- that is, you cannot transfer Pokemon up with the Pal Park and the special dual slot encounters, such as Growlithe on Route 201 if you have FireRed, will not happen.
I love these cheaper reproductions. If you're willing to pay a little more, you can get reproductions that are actually good quality while still getting a better deal than the expensive OEM copies. I buy reproductions for around $16 to $20 each and have never had any problems with any of them.
@AndrrwMartin I buy from eBay, it's really all about using your best judgment. There are several factories in China that make the reproductions some higher quality than others. I'd say just be cautious of the seller and do your due diligence in reading the description and looking at the photos. I've never had any problems with my reproduction games.
I think the fake carts have 2 solid functions, 1. It gives you a cheap way to play the games (if you end up with a set of fakes that have functioning saves) 2. It gives you a cart to take with you out in the wild so if you find what you think is a real cart, you can use it for comparison
The reproduction carts also can't be used with Stadium/Colosseum. My buddy got a repo of Yellow so he could get the Surfing Pikachu, but it couldn't recognize the cart. It was also discovered that it would delete Pokemon from the PC, so you couldn't have more than 2 stored until it started replacing them with the footprint icon.
I learned that the indentation isn't always an undisputed difference. My Ruby game has no indentation, but I bought it back on release and opened it up to be sure and sure enough the chip said "MX." Fakes also have no batteries, but this one does. So either the indentation faded (which I doubt bc my emerald game has lasted this long) or the indentation is not a key merker for fraudulent games.
I’ve got a Japanese sapphire that I got long before the decent looking fakes were a thing, and the board inside has silkscreening on it that’s almost identical to the fake one in this video, however it has the mx chip. Also has no imprint on the right hand side.
I bought a full set of five GBA pokemon games on ebay back in the day. I didn't know they were fake until far later though. The first hint I had that something was up was that they had a little quirk that by all accounts shouldn't happen. They didn't require a save before trading. This way, I could essentially duplicate pokemon by sacrificing level 3 rattatas. I thought I had discovered some never before seen game breaking glitch, for a few minutes before I realized that this is the first thing anyone would try, so something was just probably not right. The next thing that tipped me off that these weren't exactly normal was that after about a year and a half, my FireRed save file just deleted itself because of a bad battery. I was under the impression that that was just not how those games work, so I gave them away to a friend (she knew they weren't real, but never played gen 3, so was happy to take them anyway) and bought a new copy of Emerald and FireRed. I don't know if they're real, but they still work well enough anyway.
These are usually rather authentic up to a certain point. For me it was a pokemon leafgreen that completely and utterly crashed at the battle with blue in lavender tower
I came of age in the early 2000s. Didn't get my first Gameboy until roughly 2008 I'd say. My parents bought my siblings and I Pokemon games online and most of them were fake. I have no idea what website they used or whatever, but I still have my fake copy of Sapphire from all those years ago that would randomly delete my save data and crush my spirit more and more as an 8 year old child lol. Great video
ive got pokemon ruby and sapphire both real cartridges. really surprising how nice your labels are on the real copies. my ruby has no label and my sapphire has a very worn label
@@tonyt_mp4744 thats sad. my cartridges both save. I attempted to replace the battery on my sapphire so it has no battery but it still saves since the battery is only for the in game clock
@@Wyattdigitalz ahhh that's cool. Yeah see the thing with me is that I don't mind the bootleg. I look at etsy stores and their reviews. I think the quality might be better there
Aliexpress = about 3$ each. Save works, internal clock works, trading works. The label looks nothing like the original, but I couldn't care less. The labels on some of my original games look much worse, lol.
@@25Livemen The one I tried could, but there are also people who complain that they can't. I think there's quite a range of fakes, some of them are like originals and some of them are very distant relatives.
@@diaperbuster I've put 100+ hours on a fake FireRed to complement my real LeafGreen. Only issue I've seen is that backing up the save file of a fake cartridge won't work properly since they use a different save file size. Also, fake R/S/E don't usually have a battery installed, so no clock. Like I said though, I've put over 100 hours on the FireRed and got all the pokemon I needed to complete my pokedex off of it. Traded everything over to my real LG and now I'm playing through a fake Emerald cart for the Gen 3 mons to complete LG lol. Definitely worth saving the few hundred bucks that legit cartridges have jumped up to. If you have at least one real version to use to trade between Colo/XD and Gen 4+, you aren't really missing out on much.
@@BaronOfRedWait can you trade pokemons from a fake pokemon game like emerald, firered, etc.. to a real copy of pokemon saphire, ruby, etc.. Im askimg cause I need to complete my pokedex too!
@@dreidon1768 They should! YMMV, But I have 2 fake emerald carts and 2 fake firered carts and all 4 have traded fine with my real carts, cabled and wirelessly.
man just dont buy them on ebay, I got legit pokemon games for no more than 35€ each (in Italy), getting fire red, emerald, heartgold, soulsilver, black2, white2, looking at places like facebook marketplace
@@alessandrodolfi9041 i know this is year out but still kinda applies, the main difference there is you are getting european copies, for some reason the boom is pokemon game prices has only really shown in NA, like japanese copies are dirt cheap no matter where you look and all european copies ive seen while more expensive than japanese copies are still way cheaper than NA copies
The biggest problem is fake games being sold as real. I recently bought a copy of HG that turned out to be a counterfeit and the vendor is still active. No consequences for IP violations.
Back in 2011 everyone was still rocking HeartGold and Soul Silver on DS... I bet your absolutely right cause 12 years ago GBA was still a forgotten platform.
Also, I bought the Mario & Sonic advance series, they all turned out to be fake. Some stopped saving and I stent over 200 dollars on them with some even being gifts. Now I know that 4 of the ones I bought are real (I think). I'm still pissed off and it sucks, but the one I spent a ton of money on I think is real. I don't trust eBay anymore, so I may just start using an everdrive.
Just bought a legit copy of Emerald last week (checked the cartridge label and the motherboard. It also doesn't say "the game can be played" when booting up, though it has a dead internal battery). It did cost around $290 for the game and the GBA SP, but I'm really enjoying it and had nothing better to do with that money anyways.
This video saved me £50. I literally had a bid on eBay of £50 on these fakes. Then this video popped up on my home page. Was able to retract my bid. THANK YOU!
these are fakes but they are at least real games that you’re able to play…for those trying to play classic games like these they are allow us to play games from the past instead of playing overpriced games that only cater to nostalgia collectors
The biggest problem is when people want to charge full price for a fake game. A dude on eBay has the real game in the picture and sent me a fake copy of emerald for $150 at auction!!! Started return process the minute I pulled it out. It barely even fit in my gameboy and didn’t have the numbers on it above the Nintendo seal like a real one has or even the actual photo he posted to sell it!😭😭😭
I love how this guy will just say anything to convince people not to buy counterfeit games that work perfectly fine. “Yeah it doesn’t fit that great, wouldn’t recommend.” I myself will buy counterfeit games because its way cheaper and works just as good
This guy is a TH-camr. He makes a lot of money, so of course he would expect and recommend everyone else to spend $200 for a GBA game as if we all can afford it. He lives in a different world.
Because these are literally just copying and reselling an inferior version of the original product, many of which are so bad they are downright scams (deleting the save after Elite Four comes to mind on many fakes).
2 more things to tell if your games are fake, in the card slot it will say nintendo on real ones, on the back of the card it will have white print marks of a letter, and for fire red and leaf green just 4 white boxes as you saw in the video
These copies are good quality, I also played them for many hours and they save, slower than the originals but save the game. I appreciate you share your video and tell us about the differences between original and fake cartridges :)
My experience with fakes is with Zeldas, I want the real legit copy. This is because my Oracle GBA roms don’t save and I don’t trust those rom-hacks. Now with Pokémon I’ve never had a problem.
If the authentic games weren’t so crazy expensive I’d buy them but I bought all 5 games for 15 a few years ago and I play em thoroughly and just bought another set for my son to enjoy them. I’m glad they’re an cheaper option and work perfect.
You can buy all 5 cartridges for just 15 euros from china, or even less. You can also use a cartridge dumper or a DS with R4 to make your own carts, so in my opinion it really worth it.
These prices are insanely expensive I could never found the real game in store that was in 2006 when I got my Gameboy SP only got FireRed and Rayman, FZero
Scammed by someone on Facebook market place advertising it as a authentic, no where is safe. Make sure you can 100% verify it’s real if ur looking for that
I have a real Pokémon leaf green from my childhood and last year I bought what I’m pretty sure was a bootleg emerald copy that works great, and a bootleg fire red, and bootleg Japanese ruby and sapphire all 3 games work well but have small issues that a quick restart fixes, I think bootleg is definitely the way to go for $2.50 rather than $100. It’s a great way to complete the dex
I bought firered repo from my friend and don’t have a issue at all everything works well. The only difference is when saving in game there’s a second pause but always saves. But I’m not paying for a real one I’m poor period lol
I bought a Donald Duck game for the Gameboy Color. The game and the manual were real, except for the box; it was a reproduction. Well, it will never happen again cause I double check everything. It's very annoying. Cause you just can't buy something the normal way. Always have to check for fakes, reproductions and replicas.
i got a free copy of fire red from some guy in france and half a decade later i realised the game was a fake one after putting the label to a light and not seeing any imprinted numbers
That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s fake. There’s lots of legit ones that don’t have the imprint. The real way to check is to open it up and look at whether or not you have the mx chip on the board. If your chip says mx it’s real. If not it’s fake. If you got it a long time ago it’s a lot less likely to be fake, the decent looking fake carts haven’t been flooding the market that long.
Everdrives are great. I like my GBA Everdrive X5 Mini for Gameboy/Gameboy Color on my Gameboy Micro. I like many others too. I have one for each cartridge based system for ROM hacks like Super Mario Bros. Special 35th Anniversary Edition for Famicom/NES. I am playing the English patched version of Dragon Quest 1&2 for Super Famicom with another patch for double the experience and gold. You can't do that stuff on real hardware without the Everdrives. Just saying. I also have the GBA version of Game and Watch Gallery 4 and put the ROM and Finished Save file on the GBA X5 Mini renamed to the ROM and am now able to play Zelda Game and Watch from the Gallery Museum now. Can't do that stuff without Everdrives. Just saying. I love em!!!! Gotta catch em all!!!!!
If these fake games had the same functionality to the real ones like GameCube connectivity or DS Pal Park compatibility, I feel like they'd have more value. These games have no real benefit to own, its really easy to emulate these games on modern phones and they provide no real value to collectors. There is quite literally no reason to own these fake Pokemon games realistically. If you want to play these on original hardware, you are better off buying a EZ-Flash.
they are good, basically better then the originals where the battery can dry out... only problem is they are not original given by the pokemon company so they are not worth to collect like the real cartridges
The first ruby that I bought was fake and i played it with no problems during 3 month then i became more knowledgeable about games and i noticed mine was fake.
wow. reaaaally wishing I still had my original Ruby version. I just got a fake Emerald but it seems to work really well. saves and everything. just gotta hope it stays that way lol
@@faxmachineuser the battery only applies to saving in gen 1 and 2 in gen 3 its only function is for time based events, the saving twice requirement is probably because of the backup save on the cart is being the loaded due to the chips the reproduction is using
i have some fake gen 4 ds cards that i had bought years ago not knowing that if it was too good a deal then it was a fake... the card saves but it works for crap, the gameshark doesnt register it as a real card and it wont use the trade app to send to gen 5... funny thing to it tho was after using a modded 3ds and a rom dump it actually works now like if it was a real one... so thinking it was just a bad rom dumped card...
2 things, saving and transfering, the chips used for sRAM are sketchy as all hell and probably will die out on you therefore not being able to save, and you cannot transfer your pokemon to gen 4 due to them not be authentic copies
I recently bought a sapphire that had a legit cart and sticker but the board was swapped out, guy I bought it from ended up sending me majority of my money back cause he also had thought it was real but sadly not. Super bugged out game, saves and stuff but it will freeze and force me to reset the game.
I would just like to say like was commented on in the video, it all depends on how long you play the game for and if you are bothered about keeping a save because if you are committed to playing and keeping the save game for years then you really need to buy a real game because I know if I had brought a fake and I lost my save or just simply got to a point in the game and couldn’t continue because it was a fake game and wouldn’t load at a certain point I would be really frustrated do take this into account.
Thanks for this video. I want to collect the older gens now, and ppl keep warning me bout fakes on Ebay, but Im a collector and want them boxed and complete and etc. So if they're boxed and complete and expensive, then Im safe? They wont be fake?
Still the value for the fakes just blow real ones out of the water. I have a local game shop that has a few of these real carts selling for 2/300 bucks. Screw that 😂 especially sense you can emulate on the phone for free as well
Should I buy pokemon FireRed,leaf green, sapphire,ruby and emerald from Amazon? I wanna ask if it's a good idea or not considering I don't want to accidentally buy a fake games
Um... I bought some (well my uncle did because of my mom and dad don't trust the Web) and they were like 70 bucks with five games and it was shown in a table and everything so hopefully I didn't get rip offs
IF you wanna play pokemon Ruby saphire or emerald do what this man says and emulate nintendo aint givin it too us feel free to pirate :D only fake i own is pokemon green version cause that wasnt released here other than that i emulate
God I hate fake GBA games I remember when I found out about my own copy of Zelda the Minish Cap was fake man was I pissed!!! I swear whoever sold me a fake copy of that GBA game all I can say is, you clever bastard
look, if i want to connect my gen 3 games to gen 4, i'll want an authentic copy of the game. sure, its more expensive, but id rather have more functionality and bring my old pokemon into the newer games AND get extra pokemon in the gen 4 games with the pokeradar etc.
Real problem is that the actual games are so unnecessary overpriced.
exactly
I completely understand the "Enhanced" versions of the games like Crystal, Emerald, Platinum, etc. being a bit overpriced since they didn't sell as well but c'mon, almost all of these games sold over 15 million copies per generation. It shouldn't be expensive
@@Frozen_Ketchup fire red, leaf green, ruby, sapphire are not that expensive, I paid $20 for a legit copies. I still cannot find Emerald at reasonable price, because demand is high and an amount of legit copies is small.
@@zabaziomalka lies!! Fire red and leaf green going for 100, ruby sapphire north of 50 each I sell these games on ebay you are not fooling anyone
I mean I have these same 5 from amazon and I really like them. I have over 100 hours on each cart and I've never had any issues. Not really sure how long they last, but for the past 6 months they've worked perfectly. They trade fine to both original copies and between the repros themselves. And realistically, I'd rather pay $40 for the nostalgia of all 5 games rather than over $100 per copy of a 20y/o original.
Can you share the seller? I’m interested in getting ones myself.
hum i thought you couldnt trade or duel with the fake ones.
can you confirm this?
@@filipenogueira4924 you can trade. Have t tried battling. But I traded from an EZ Flash emerald to a fake sapphire cartridge.
@@DetroitMetroRetro Really though? I thought pal park didn't work
@@user-lh7mt7zo7lCorrect, Pal Park and Pokemon Box/Colosseum won't work.
Just making the save isn’t enough to tell if the save function works or not, you gotta restart the game and see if the save file is still there! Anyways, I thought those fakes looked pretty legit until I saw em side by side with the authentic copies after which it’s pretty obvious they’re fake
I've been shiny hunting on a repro fire red for the last few months and I haven't had any problems with my save a single bit
Even though there are fakes out there. It enables people who don't have enough money to be able to play the games. Not all of us can afford to spend 60 plus dollars on a real game.
Tbh with the fact that the carts don’t fit properly it’s a hazard to your game boy. You’re better off getting a flash cart that can handle saves like an ever drive and putting the games on there if you can’t afford the real thing (most of us can’t just throw away $60 for a game any day, retro or modern). But the best option is to save up and get it, put away $10 a week or every other week even, and you’ll be there in no time.
@@BigTrees4evernot everyone lives in a 1st world country where $10 is a small amount of money. We people from poor countries wanna play games too after a day of hard work at the rice fields
in my country to own the original game is like 4/10 of the minimal wage on a 20 years old game that didnt have a translation for my lenguage is kinda sussy
@@Kalitayy at that point you're better off playing an emulator on your phone or pc
Just pay 100 dollars a single time, and be able to play literally every gameboy game ever made all in one cartridge.... via the Everdrive.
A big issue with the fake R/S/E games not mentioned here is that usually there's no real time clock, which is essential for berries.
Edit: I should mention that it's more than just berries. Mirage Island, Espeon/Umbreon, any time based event whatsoever. If that's fine with you then cool, but just saying that the repros are not exact duplications.
You can just use Emeralds battle tower duplication glitch to multiply any items you need aka berries
@@shadowkhan3157how???
@@shadowkhan3157 the duplication glitch does not work on fake cartridges.
ive never grown berries in my life. single use held items are too much of a hassle when permanent ones are widely available in most games.
My argument for repos is that authentic copies are so expensive. I get my repos at about $10 each vs $60-$90 for a real one. I paid a cheap price, I get a cheap product. However this argument only works as long as repros are marketed as such. When they're labeled as authentic and sold as such, it's a scam. Through and through.
These games are over 10 years old, some older, by buying authentic, I'm not giving my money to Game Freak, I'm giving my money to some guy. By buying repos, I'm not taking money from Game Freak, they don't sell authentic anymore anyway. So I'm still giving my money to some guy.
Lastly, (though this point may not apply to the repo situation as much, but it's still something of note.) piracy is usually a customer service problem. When the authentic copy of a game is too much, or the service behind it isn't worth the price, etc. People pirate. But people go with the most convenient route (of course there's exceptions but follow me here), when Netflix got into streaming, so many people stopped pirating any and all forms of film. But when Hulu, and Disney + and this service and that service came along, streaming got so difficult and convoluted, people went back to pirating.
Pirating and repros will always exist, don't fight it, instead make sure it's happening for the right reasons and they're not just scamming people by labeling pirated copies as legit and selling them as such.
@Flamester2 yeah. But emulation on my phone for DS games is clunky, I'd rather pay for the cartridge to play on my handheld. I own it to be more than a paper weight.
@Flamester2 I'm talking about both. Although I'm more likely to emulate GBA games. I do quite often. Though, I do have a couple repros for my DS lite and Gameboy advance SP
@@thedeagle1007in my experience playing ds games on cheap crappy sub-$50 android phones and 5 year old Amazon tablets, the emulator runs flawlessly and the touch screen actually works. With a Bluetooth snes controller hooked up, it’s pretty close to the original. Though I’ll always prefer playing on the original hardware for nostalgia, and will when possible, for the times I was stuck without a ds and wanting to play Pokémon or Zelda, this worked just fine. Now if only I could do all this on my iPhone without jailbreaking it.
I remember going on a binge buying all the pokemon games from the GB to DS, and god was I devastated when I realized a good half of the lot was fake. Never using Mercari again lol
It's also worth noting that none of the dual slot features of reproductions work with the DS games- that is, you cannot transfer Pokemon up with the Pal Park and the special dual slot encounters, such as Growlithe on Route 201 if you have FireRed, will not happen.
I love these cheaper reproductions. If you're willing to pay a little more, you can get reproductions that are actually good quality while still getting a better deal than the expensive OEM copies. I buy reproductions for around $16 to $20 each and have never had any problems with any of them.
Whats the seller or we’re do you buy ur repros?
@AndrrwMartin I buy from eBay, it's really all about using your best judgment. There are several factories in China that make the reproductions some higher quality than others. I'd say just be cautious of the seller and do your due diligence in reading the description and looking at the photos. I've never had any problems with my reproduction games.
I think the fake carts have 2 solid functions, 1. It gives you a cheap way to play the games (if you end up with a set of fakes that have functioning saves) 2. It gives you a cart to take with you out in the wild so if you find what you think is a real cart, you can use it for comparison
7:30 That is the coolest Game Boy Macro mod I’ve ever seen. Looks like a micro!
I was thinking the same thing!
The reproduction carts also can't be used with Stadium/Colosseum. My buddy got a repo of Yellow so he could get the Surfing Pikachu, but it couldn't recognize the cart. It was also discovered that it would delete Pokemon from the PC, so you couldn't have more than 2 stored until it started replacing them with the footprint icon.
I learned that the indentation isn't always an undisputed difference. My Ruby game has no indentation, but I bought it back on release and opened it up to be sure and sure enough the chip said "MX." Fakes also have no batteries, but this one does. So either the indentation faded (which I doubt bc my emerald game has lasted this long) or the indentation is not a key merker for fraudulent games.
I’ve got a Japanese sapphire that I got long before the decent looking fakes were a thing, and the board inside has silkscreening on it that’s almost identical to the fake one in this video, however it has the mx chip. Also has no imprint on the right hand side.
I bought a full set of five GBA pokemon games on ebay back in the day. I didn't know they were fake until far later though.
The first hint I had that something was up was that they had a little quirk that by all accounts shouldn't happen. They didn't require a save before trading. This way, I could essentially duplicate pokemon by sacrificing level 3 rattatas. I thought I had discovered some never before seen game breaking glitch, for a few minutes before I realized that this is the first thing anyone would try, so something was just probably not right.
The next thing that tipped me off that these weren't exactly normal was that after about a year and a half, my FireRed save file just deleted itself because of a bad battery. I was under the impression that that was just not how those games work, so I gave them away to a friend (she knew they weren't real, but never played gen 3, so was happy to take them anyway) and bought a new copy of Emerald and FireRed. I don't know if they're real, but they still work well enough anyway.
Considering how much the original games are going for, I'd say these are you best bet if you don't wanna drop $200 on one of them
These are usually rather authentic up to a certain point.
For me it was a pokemon leafgreen that completely and utterly crashed at the battle with blue in lavender tower
I came of age in the early 2000s. Didn't get my first Gameboy until roughly 2008 I'd say. My parents bought my siblings and I Pokemon games online and most of them were fake. I have no idea what website they used or whatever, but I still have my fake copy of Sapphire from all those years ago that would randomly delete my save data and crush my spirit more and more as an 8 year old child lol. Great video
ive got pokemon ruby and sapphire both real cartridges. really surprising how nice your labels are on the real copies. my ruby has no label and my sapphire has a very worn label
Funny enough. My original ruby has no label anymore. It actually doesn't save anymore either
@@tonyt_mp4744 thats sad. my cartridges both save. I attempted to replace the battery on my sapphire so it has no battery but it still saves since the battery is only for the in game clock
@@Wyattdigitalz ahhh that's cool. Yeah see the thing with me is that I don't mind the bootleg. I look at etsy stores and their reviews. I think the quality might be better there
@@tonyt_mp4744 bootlegs are fine, you just run in to problems when you try to transfer upwards or link to colosseum/xd
@@Wyattdigitalz then im definitely buying them asap!
The only issue I’ve had with these is after elite four the game won’t save and it will just take you back to your last save point.
Aliexpress = about 3$ each.
Save works, internal clock works, trading works.
The label looks nothing like the original, but I couldn't care less. The labels on some of my original games look much worse, lol.
I have been wondering about the internal clock, does yours have a battery that’s visible?
I wanna know too, also could you share the link pls?
trade between repros works? can they also Trade with the real games?
@@25Livemen The one I tried could, but there are also people who complain that they can't. I think there's quite a range of fakes, some of them are like originals and some of them are very distant relatives.
@@Tukemuth alright Thank you 🙏
I just bought a similar bundle from Amazon about 2 weeks ago. Seems to function just fine. Got about 20 hours into Fire Red.
I’m thinking about getting some, was it worth it?
@@diaperbuster I've put 100+ hours on a fake FireRed to complement my real LeafGreen. Only issue I've seen is that backing up the save file of a fake cartridge won't work properly since they use a different save file size. Also, fake R/S/E don't usually have a battery installed, so no clock. Like I said though, I've put over 100 hours on the FireRed and got all the pokemon I needed to complete my pokedex off of it. Traded everything over to my real LG and now I'm playing through a fake Emerald cart for the Gen 3 mons to complete LG lol.
Definitely worth saving the few hundred bucks that legit cartridges have jumped up to. If you have at least one real version to use to trade between Colo/XD and Gen 4+, you aren't really missing out on much.
@@BaronOfRedWait can you trade pokemons from a fake pokemon game like emerald, firered, etc.. to a real copy of pokemon saphire, ruby, etc.. Im askimg cause I need to complete my pokedex too!
@@dreidon1768 They should! YMMV, But I have 2 fake emerald carts and 2 fake firered carts and all 4 have traded fine with my real carts, cabled and wirelessly.
It's kind of annoying honestly. Legit ones are so damn expensive that there's no reason they can't make an actual good quality fake one and sell it.
Yeah! I am just going to buy repro carts cuz im not paying $80 for a damn game
man just dont buy them on ebay, I got legit pokemon games for no more than 35€ each (in Italy), getting fire red, emerald, heartgold, soulsilver, black2, white2, looking at places like facebook marketplace
@@alessandrodolfi9041 i know this is year out but still kinda applies, the main difference there is you are getting european copies, for some reason the boom is pokemon game prices has only really shown in NA, like japanese copies are dirt cheap no matter where you look and all european copies ive seen while more expensive than japanese copies are still way cheaper than NA copies
@@Dontbeafraid2Then I hope you'll never want to play Persona games on PSP or Shin Megami Tensei on 3DS.
@@enoyna1001 i dont, and im not even interested in pokemon anymore💀
The biggest problem is fake games being sold as real. I recently bought a copy of HG that turned out to be a counterfeit and the vendor is still active. No consequences for IP violations.
I bought $5 for an official Pokémon LeafGreen at EZ Pawn in 2011. 😎
Damn. I want an authentic one from amazon but they expect you to pay $180.00. What, the, heck. It's just a gba game for God's sake!
@@stankyleg6535 just boycott them and they will change
Back in 2011 everyone was still rocking HeartGold and Soul Silver on DS... I bet your absolutely right cause 12 years ago GBA was still a forgotten platform.
@@stankyleg6535 that's a rip-off! 😤
Also, I bought the Mario & Sonic advance series, they all turned out to be fake. Some stopped saving and I stent over 200 dollars on them with some even being gifts. Now I know that 4 of the ones I bought are real (I think). I'm still pissed off and it sucks, but the one I spent a ton of money on I think is real. I don't trust eBay anymore, so I may just start using an everdrive.
Just bought a legit copy of Emerald last week (checked the cartridge label and the motherboard. It also doesn't say "the game can be played" when booting up, though it has a dead internal battery). It did cost around $290 for the game and the GBA SP, but I'm really enjoying it and had nothing better to do with that money anyways.
Damn son prices are crazy for the English games.
You probably got a complete edition with packaging etc. right?
@@randyrivers2047 Nope. Just the cartridge.
@@warriorking9885 that's crazy man. I got a pristine German emerald for 60
@@randyrivers2047 samee I thought 60-70€ for German emerald was already kinda expensive lmao
Emeralds selling for 200-250 now on eBay lol
This video saved me £50. I literally had a bid on eBay of £50 on these fakes. Then this video popped up on my home page. Was able to retract my bid. THANK YOU!
That 60 dollars slo mo flip was dope 😂
these are fakes but they are at least real games that you’re able to play…for those trying to play classic games like these they are allow us to play games from the past instead of playing overpriced games that only cater to nostalgia collectors
Didn’t know these were around 👀 appreciate the info 👍
The biggest problem is when people want to charge full price for a fake game. A dude on eBay has the real game in the picture and sent me a fake copy of emerald for $150 at auction!!! Started return process the minute I pulled it out. It barely even fit in my gameboy and didn’t have the numbers on it above the Nintendo seal like a real one has or even the actual photo he posted to sell it!😭😭😭
I love how this guy will just say anything to convince people not to buy counterfeit games that work perfectly fine. “Yeah it doesn’t fit that great, wouldn’t recommend.” I myself will buy counterfeit games because its way cheaper and works just as good
This guy is a TH-camr. He makes a lot of money, so of course he would expect and recommend everyone else to spend $200 for a GBA game as if we all can afford it. He lives in a different world.
I had this copy of Mario Advance 3 which was a bootleg. It honestly felt like the cartridge would never come out
It felt really stuck
Because these are literally just copying and reselling an inferior version of the original product, many of which are so bad they are downright scams (deleting the save after Elite Four comes to mind on many fakes).
EXACTLY@@hellodolly7989
2 more things to tell if your games are fake, in the card slot it will say nintendo on real ones, on the back of the card it will have white print marks of a letter, and for fire red and leaf green just 4 white boxes as you saw in the video
These copies are good quality, I also played them for many hours and they save, slower than the originals but save the game. I appreciate you share your video and tell us about the differences between original and fake cartridges :)
Now the real games are like $100-300
My experience with fakes is with Zeldas, I want the real legit copy. This is because my Oracle GBA roms don’t save and I don’t trust those rom-hacks. Now with Pokémon I’ve never had a problem.
I've discovered that the fake carts don't work with the gamecube jirachi distribution disks
If the authentic games weren’t so crazy expensive I’d buy them but I bought all 5 games for 15 a few years ago and I play em thoroughly and just bought another set for my son to enjoy them. I’m glad they’re an cheaper option and work perfect.
Note that you can't transfert pokemon from 3g to 4g with fake copies
You can buy all 5 cartridges for just 15 euros from china, or even less. You can also use a cartridge dumper or a DS with R4 to make your own carts, so in my opinion it really worth it.
These prices are insanely expensive I could never found the real game in store that was in 2006 when I got my Gameboy SP only got FireRed and Rayman, FZero
"I don't support fake carts"
* immediately endorses roms *
🤦♂️😂
Roms are literally the real games you can play them on the actual hardware
Scammed by someone on Facebook market place advertising it as a authentic, no where is safe. Make sure you can 100% verify it’s real if ur looking for that
I have a real Pokémon leaf green from my childhood and last year I bought what I’m pretty sure was a bootleg emerald copy that works great, and a bootleg fire red, and bootleg Japanese ruby and sapphire all 3 games work well but have small issues that a quick restart fixes, I think bootleg is definitely the way to go for $2.50 rather than $100. It’s a great way to complete the dex
Yeah no i'm not buying 100+ dollars for a authentic game copy, those prices are outrageous.
Doesnt the authentic Pokémon gba games have a battery?
Only RSE. It’s for the clock. FRLG have no clock.
@@Dave01Rhodes ah
Most all videos mention the manufacturer number but I haven’t found anyone on these videos that explains what that number means
I bought firered repo from my friend and don’t have a issue at all everything works well. The only difference is when saving in game there’s a second pause but always saves. But I’m not paying for a real one I’m poor period lol
I bought a Donald Duck game for the Gameboy Color. The game and the manual were real, except for the box; it was a reproduction. Well, it will never happen again cause I double check everything. It's very annoying. Cause you just can't buy something the normal way. Always have to check for fakes, reproductions and replicas.
i got a free copy of fire red from some guy in france and half a decade later i realised the game was a fake one after putting the label to a light and not seeing any imprinted numbers
That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s fake. There’s lots of legit ones that don’t have the imprint. The real way to check is to open it up and look at whether or not you have the mx chip on the board. If your chip says mx it’s real. If not it’s fake. If you got it a long time ago it’s a lot less likely to be fake, the decent looking fake carts haven’t been flooding the market that long.
it might be reproduction[remake]
Wtf do you mean they don't save
Everdrives are great. I like my GBA Everdrive X5 Mini for Gameboy/Gameboy Color on my Gameboy Micro. I like many others too. I have one for each cartridge based system for ROM hacks like Super Mario Bros. Special 35th Anniversary Edition for Famicom/NES. I am playing the English patched version of Dragon Quest 1&2 for Super Famicom with another patch for double the experience and gold. You can't do that stuff on real hardware without the Everdrives. Just saying. I also have the GBA version of Game and Watch Gallery 4 and put the ROM and Finished Save file on the GBA X5 Mini renamed to the ROM and am now able to play Zelda Game and Watch from the Gallery Museum now. Can't do that stuff without Everdrives. Just saying. I love em!!!! Gotta catch em all!!!!!
If these fake games had the same functionality to the real ones like GameCube connectivity or DS Pal Park compatibility, I feel like they'd have more value.
These games have no real benefit to own, its really easy to emulate these games on modern phones and they provide no real value to collectors. There is quite literally no reason to own these fake Pokemon games realistically. If you want to play these on original hardware, you are better off buying a EZ-Flash.
they are good, basically better then the originals where the battery can dry out... only problem is they are not original given by the pokemon company so they are not worth to collect like the real cartridges
Cute thinking $80 is a lot. The prices today are even worse..
I’ve hade them for years they save and everything works good
you paid twice as much as what ali express would cost you for the same item
My pokemon gba games can save until i get all 8 badges then it's back to the beginning.
The first ruby that I bought was fake and i played it with no problems during 3 month then i became more knowledgeable about games and i noticed mine was fake.
wow. reaaaally wishing I still had my original Ruby version. I just got a fake Emerald but it seems to work really well. saves and everything. just gotta hope it stays that way lol
I bought a repro Emerald a while back and to actually save the game you have to save twice because otherwise it'll load the second most recent save
probably an issue with the save battery
@@faxmachineuser the battery only applies to saving in gen 1 and 2 in gen 3 its only function is for time based events, the saving twice requirement is probably because of the backup save on the cart is being the loaded due to the chips the reproduction is using
So are fakes just roms? Cause roms run amazingly since they are just the cartridges dumped whether on a flash or on a emulator.
Like the shell on that gba where you get it?
Whats the difference between 1 manufactures number or 2?
Fakes can't be used to transfer to Gen 4 games via the DS Lite.
people have traded from one fake to one real gba cart.
Also the real ones have the battery you can seen via bootlegs do not have battery at all
pay a 4/10 of a minimal wage on a game from 20 years ago, that didnt have a translation for my country is kinda sad for me 😢
i have some fake gen 4 ds cards that i had bought years ago not knowing that if it was too good a deal then it was a fake... the card saves but it works for crap, the gameshark doesnt register it as a real card and it wont use the trade app to send to gen 5... funny thing to it tho was after using a modded 3ds and a rom dump it actually works now like if it was a real one... so thinking it was just a bad rom dumped card...
I guess I got lucky bought fire red and leaf green for $20 on eBay, can save, can trade and works great..
do they trade though or save?
i mean if u can trade with them and battle with them why not buy them for 80$ for all 5 vs 200$ for each og copies lol
2 things, saving and transfering, the chips used for sRAM are sketchy as all hell and probably will die out on you therefore not being able to save, and you cannot transfer your pokemon to gen 4 due to them not be authentic copies
So who cares if they’re fakes? As long as they work I couldn’t care less.
I recently bought a sapphire that had a legit cart and sticker but the board was swapped out, guy I bought it from ended up sending me majority of my money back cause he also had thought it was real but sadly not. Super bugged out game, saves and stuff but it will freeze and force me to reset the game.
Don't buy fake games! check the guides to see the originals!
I would just like to say like was commented on in the video, it all depends on how long you play the game for and if you are bothered about keeping a save because if you are committed to playing and keeping the save game for years then you really need to buy a real game because I know if I had brought a fake and I lost my save or just simply got to a point in the game and couldn’t continue because it was a fake game and wouldn’t load at a certain point I would be really frustrated do take this into account.
Thanks for this video. I want to collect the older gens now, and ppl keep warning me bout fakes on Ebay, but Im a collector and want them boxed and complete and etc. So if they're boxed and complete and expensive, then Im safe? They wont be fake?
You need to Google how a original game should look
You can see from picture of the back and of picture of the inside of the game
Still the value for the fakes just blow real ones out of the water. I have a local game shop that has a few of these real carts selling for 2/300 bucks. Screw that 😂 especially sense you can emulate on the phone for free as well
Should I buy pokemon FireRed,leaf green, sapphire,ruby and emerald from Amazon? I wanna ask if it's a good idea or not considering I don't want to accidentally buy a fake games
I just got them. Honestly I can’t tell a difference on mine and I own the original Emerald. Trading works the same
I have a original cartridge emerald edition GB advanced. If you want it?
There is scam artists out there selling them bootleg versions as authentics be careful buying of eBay
Same with Amazon.
Um... I bought some (well my uncle did because of my mom and dad don't trust the Web) and they were like 70 bucks with five games and it was shown in a table and everything so hopefully I didn't get rip offs
5 games for $70 is definitely going to be fake games
damn $70 for fake games lol
I got fakes and they work very well I’m not complaining all 5 only costed me 35 bucks
My real sapphire i have also has the indent I never noticed before lol had it since I was 8 im 23 now
My fakes haven't given me any issues I refuse to pay for the og's crazy prices
How does the trading work with authentic cartridges?
@@chicaskas2 I only have fakes, but my fakes can trade with each other.
Never been able to trade a fake with an original cuz I don't have any.
Can they migrate to diamond?
@@SMCwasTaken no
I just ordered these for my DS lol. Eh, hope it works out. 'cause I don't know if emulation will work.
I got a same thing, instead that it's a pokemon game, the game is LZ (legends of Zelda?)
IF you wanna play pokemon Ruby saphire or emerald do what this man says and emulate nintendo aint givin it too us feel free to pirate :D only fake i own is pokemon green version cause that wasnt released here other than that i emulate
I have a few of the games real and fake I’ve had one erase a save I think after the champion battle but I had one save beyond that I got them in 2012
Can u trade Pokémon from fake
yeah
I mean you kinda save 00000000000000.1% of your money
I buy repros mainly to flash other game on to them
God I hate fake GBA games I remember when I found out about my own copy of Zelda the Minish Cap was fake man was I pissed!!! I swear whoever sold me a fake copy of that GBA game all I can say is, you clever bastard
you still enjoyed playing it though right?? there’s nothing wrong with fake GBA games. authentic copies are absurdly high.
It was me that sold it to you back in 2013
@@User37717 So you’re the reason why I’ve been playing Zelda Minish Cap on my fake GBA cartridge of mine?
I had a friend who had saving issues with his leaf green version after a while. I dont know if he had a genuine one or if his copy was fake.
might be because the cart's save battery is dying out
@@faxmachineuser Leaf green doesnt have a save battery. It uses flash save. In fact, it doesnt even have a clock battery.
Probably a repo, I had the same happen to a fake Pokemon Ruby.
Yea I got scammed which one of these😢
I have all 5 fake, but work perfectly.
I have real Pokémon platinum from my uncle Gary he gave it to me
are they really ''trash'' though if someone gets shinies or legendaries? 🤔 some people say they have from these games
look, if i want to connect my gen 3 games to gen 4, i'll want an authentic copy of the game. sure, its more expensive, but id rather have more functionality and bring my old pokemon into the newer games AND get extra pokemon in the gen 4 games with the pokeradar etc.
Gorgeous Gameboy macro.
You sound too old to be fooled like that
Add a battery