Save State

[PaperPikmin]

My Pokémon Emerald game cartridge ran out of battery, so I attempted to change the battery. When I took out the battery, my save was deleted, so I tried to create a new game save, but it didn't save. Was this because of the battery or something else?

 

[Gligar13]

What kind of battery did you use? You might have fried it or something.

 

[PaperPikmin]

Shouldn't the game retain the save even without the battery?

 

[xoddf2]

My copies of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire both have expired clock batteries. My copy of Pokémon Emerald still has a working clock battery. The save file in all 3 is intact. My copy of Pokémon Gold has an expired save battery as of early September 2011 (lasted over 10 years!). Crystal (obtained second-hand in early 2005) still has a working save battery, though... Red/Blue/Yellow still have working save batteries, not surprisingly...

Anyway, since Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire, and Emerald are GBA games, it should use flash memory or something to save data. I noticed that most of my GBA cartridges (except Pokémon Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald) do not contain batteries, even my copy of Mario Kart: Super Circuit obtained in March 2002. Even Pokémon FireRed/LeafGreen do not contain batteries.

 

[Gligar13]

Only early GBA games use batteries for saves, they later switched to more reliable flashram. RSE uses the battery for time, but it requires a certain battery.