Vol. 1, Issue 16 - Preserving Pokémon
How to preserve your Pokémon game data, along with the latest Pokémon news, and a new addition to our mailbag!
Welcome to issue 16 of the Johto Times! This week, we are sharing a feature on the topic of preserving Pokémon, offering information and solutions to help retain our Pokémon game data. We also have news on Pokémon GO and Pokémon HOME, as well as more from our mailbag!
You may have noticed some new banners and branding across the newsletter. This pixel artwork was created by yours truly, and shows the Tin Tower of Ecruteak City in Johto. The piece is called “Johto Times” and was my first attempt at pixel art, which took around six hours of work over two days to complete. I don’t consider myself to be an artist, so I had to sit back and ask myself, “Did I just create that?”.
I believe it perfectly encapsulates the nostalgia and vision of Johto Times. Feel free to let me know what you think to it in the comments!
News
Niantic have introduced Shadow Raids to Pokémon GO, alongside a new event called Rising Shadows, which runs between May 22nd at 10:00 local time to May 28th at 20:00 local time. It introduces the Master Ball into the game, an item that is capable of capturing any Pokémon without fail! Unlike regular raids, Remote Raid passes will not work for Shadow Raids, which fans of Pokémon GO, especially those that have been part of the #HearUsNiantic movement, will be deeply disappointed to hear. Full details on Shadow Raids can be found here.
Source: Niantic
For those of you looking forward to the new Pokémon HOME update, The Pokémon Company issued a correction on Friday 19th May, confirming that the 3.0.0 update wouldn’t be releasing on May 24th as they had previously announced. TPC confirmed that the actual release date is yet to be confirmed, but would be coming soon.
Source: Pokémon
Finally, the Pokémon Legends Arceus Baneful Fox Shiny Mask distribution will end on Wednesday, May 31st 2023. This is obtained through the in-game Mystery Gift feature. Big thanks to Serebii for this reminder.
Source: Serebii
Feature: Preserving Pokémon
I’m a huge supporter of video game preservation, especially when it comes to something as special as Pokémon, whether that be featuring photographs and personal stories of a fan at a rare distribution event or spreading the word about the efforts to remember a now defunct Pokémon store. But something that will impact many video game enthusiasts, especially Pokémon fans such as myself, is the risk of losing precious memories from their physical games.
Over time, internal batteries within copies of older Pokémon games will die. Replacing a battery and soldering in a new one isn’t too difficult if you know what you’re doing, but you run the risk of losing your save data in the process if you are not careful, which may include information you want to retain, such as a shiny, or even a unique distribution event Pokémon.
Batteries have some variance depending on the specific type and the amount of usage those games have had over the years. At the time of publication, I am confident to say that almost every single copy of Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal that haven’t had their batteries replaced have already died. Their save data will have been wiped due to the game’s built-in clock function draining the batteries faster than usual. I was unable to find a source that agreed on battery life, but five years was the general length of time that I saw when it comes to Generation 2 games.
Copies of Pokémon Red, Blue and Yellow should have lasted far longer as there are no time-based events in those games, and they are likely to still retain their original data. But even those games are nearing their end. I saw estimates of batteries failing twenty-five to thirty years after release. This could potentially mean that copies of Red and Blue released in North America could see their data dying off in the years 2023 to 2028.
There is a little more hope for Game Boy Advance games such as Pokémon Ruby, Sapphire and Emerald, or FireRed and LeafGreen, as save data is stored in the cartridge's flash memory (Flash-RAM). It's advised that you save the game at least once every ten years to avoid flash bit rot. I won’t go into the details of flash bit rot here, but there are many great resources online I would urge you to check out. But even those games will eventually lose their data entirely.
This brings me to the topic of solutions. I am personally uncomfortable replacing batteries inside my games for fear of breaking them, and I am sure I’m not the only one. While it may be too late for copies of the generation two Pokémon games, there are now a few solutions out there that will allow you to transfer data from the cartridge to a PC, where you can store it and hold on to your data indefinitely. One of these is a product called GBxCart RW, one I have personal experience with.
Disclaimer: Before I go further, I must stress that I have not been paid by the company to make this post, nor do I have a connection to the company in any way, and I am not receiving a commission. I am speaking from personal experience as a customer and simply wish to recommend their product.
GBxCart RW is a device that allows you to back up game ROMs and save data from Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance cartridges to your computer using FlashGBX (compatible with Windows, Mac & Linux), which can then be copied back to the original cartridge when the battery has been replaced. It can even transfer photos taken on a Game Boy Camera! It’s powered using a USB-C cable, and this isn’t typically included with the product when you buy it.
I have personally used a GBxCart to back up all of my Pokémon titles, as well as dozens of other games from my collection. I paid just under £40 from a company called ZedLabz in the UK in 2022 for this product (I will leave some information at the bottom of this page for anyone who is interested in finding one in other parts of the world). These products are now becoming more widely available, and I urge anyone who cares about their game data to take the time to research what is available out there.
When it comes to Nintendo DS and 3DS, custom hardware can preserve your save data. However, if you are someone like me who is worried about breaking your consoles, it might not be an option for you, and I would recommend researching exactly what is involved in that process. If you are interested in learning more, there are a number of great resources out there that can help, and many helpful communities willing to educate.
I will leave you with a thought in regard to digital games. Nintendo have previously made several of their games available on the Wii U and 3DS eShop, but on March 27th 2023 their online store closed down, taking all of those games with it. At the time of writing, it is not confirmed that mainline Pokémon titles will appear on the Nintendo Switch Online service, but even if they do, they are only accessible if you continue to pay an online subscription, and could be pulled from the service entirely at a time of Nintendo’s choosing. I hope that Pokémon fans will reflect on this and realise that their Pokémon data may not be around in twenty years, unless they take measures to secure it.
For more information on the GBxCart, as well as links to where to buy it, download FlashGBX, and access their Discord server for questions and support, check out the official website here.
Mailbag
Want to be a part of our newsletter? You’re welcome to submit content including (but not limited to) questions, fanart, short stories, memories, photographs of your collection, or even Pokémon tattoos! We will happily publish them in our mailbag and share them in future issues of our newsletter.
This week's contribution comes from June Fernan, who wants to share their take on a mythologized version of the Twitch Plays Pokémon stream that occurred during February 2014, which they are currently posting on their Substack. We have been given their blessing to reprint an excerpt from part one of five: The Myth of Abba Jesus:
The humans in the town did little more than keep their houses warm and their children fed. But there was one young man by the name of Red, who had an unstoppable allure. He was often found outside, drumming at the campfire by himself through dusk and into the night, and when his mother shouted from her window for him to stop, he would put the drums down then dance erratically. Most thought he was helplessly overwhelmed by mental problems, but Professor Oak claimed he had a cerebral connection to the divine. “If he ever speaks to you,” Oak said to Abby, “Listen with intent. Red is a visionary.”
One afternoon, Abby and Abba dared to walk into his sight, while he was furiously typing away on a red electronic gadget. Upon seeing them, he froze. He came to the longest silence moment of silence they had ever seen for him. And he pointed at them and said, “You two. You are fighters.”
Abby and Abba looked at each other and laughed. It was true Abby had a fierce attitude toward the roughneck monsters of the forest, but she had never considered herself a fighter. Red told them they would soon grow too fierce for the tiny village of Pallet Town to contain their strengths, and that they should head north to Pewter City, where they could train with the strongest rock Pokémon of the region. “It is there,” he said while looking into the sky, “where you will discover your destiny.”
Thank you for reaching out to us, June, and the very best of luck with your story! I was a huge fan of Twitch Plays Pokémon, and so it's a pleasure to share your writing. Interested Johto Times readers can find parts one to four on June Fernan's Substack here, and part five will be out this Sunday!
It's an honor to be featured in the mailbag. And the pixel art looks great!
I didn't know plain cartridge data had to be supported by a battery. Guess my lineup from Red is doomed soon...