Hey ho, I own a Game Boy Micro. It's easily the best handheld I've ever owned. I have a couple of games for it too, however, trying to purchase legitimate GBA games nowadays is somewhat of a nightmare, unless you have the physical article in front of you to inspect.

Fake cartridges are normally quite easy to spot, between spelling mistakes, terrible sticker placement, dodgy build quality or missing Nintendo branding.

So, this wouldn't normally warrant a topic, but what I received in the post today is probably one of the most impressive GBA forgeries I've seen.

So the sticker is on straight and the product code checks out. Though it's missing the all important imprinted version number.

Cart has correct model number and Nintendo branding. Though text is a little thin.

The "1" in Nintendo kinda gives it away a little too.

Normally I'd just return the fake cart and try again, but ffvi advance is such a pain in the arse to find in the UK. So, long shot... but does anyone have any experience with playing fake GBA carts for long periods of time? I'd hate to get 50 hours in and lose my progress.

I've actually been getting back to my GBA and buying a few games I missed out on. You are very thorough in your inspections. I just check if the game works, is actually the game I bought and doesn't have weird load times or anything. Out of curiosity, where do you buy your carts? I've just been sticking to eBay.

Ebay here too. Mainly as they have a fairly decent returns policy.

Retail stores don't appear to stock 2nd hand games for anything further back than the current generation where I live, and you'll be lucky to catch them in charity shops. Suppose there's the Amazon marketplace, but I'm unfamiliar with it, plus doesn't seem to be much choice.

Last time I was in the local Gamestop they still had quite a large collection of games from last gen, including GBA games. They're fresh out of Xbox games, but everything else is there.

Anyway, I would have never known that was a fake cartridge. Does it work right and all?

@believer258: Yeah, it works fine at the moment.

Some of the carts I've had have had funny sub menus advertising other games distributed by the company that produces the fake games.

This one does not, and appears to be a faithful reproduction, I'm more worried about the fact it likely uses a battery to store the save data, meaning I'll get 90 odd hours in, only to find my save has deleted itself. I've yet to crack it open just to satisfy my curiosity.

@mwng: they all use batteries.

edit: they don't but a lot of legit games do, my bad.

There's a place called Dimple in the areas around where I live and they even sell NES games and NES' themselves.

They literally have all kinds of old stuff it is quite amazing. Though most of the older console game sections are full of Madden's (seriously, there will be 30 N64 cartridges and only 4 or 5 won't be a Madden)

@Benny: While you've already edited, thought I'd explain for other folks if they were interested.

Some carts use a battery to keep the in game clock correct, like Pokémon. But saving is now handled by flash memory, powered by the Game Boy.

The old style large Game Boy carts used a battery to keep saves, as do the fake GBA cartridges, as it's cheaper low tech. However, this does mean that when the battery runs out, or is removed, the saves are lost.

At least this is my understanding, if someone would like to chip in with a more accurate explanation, I'm all for learnin'

That's crazy and awesome

@mwng: You're right because I had to replace the battery in my pokemon gold cartridge as it couldn't hold a save anymore.

Sucks seeing all your old progress lost forever but to be fair it would probably have been quite embarrassing since I didn't have a clue about pokemon back then.

I lived in the middle east for some time. You can buy walls of fake carts there. I have had experiences with them wiping out my data, but I also played through most of Summon Knight on one. I think it has a lot to do with the quality of the fake. Granted I only played 2 or 3 of those carts, so I have no idea what the actual statistics are on how likely they are to be lemons.

As luck would have it I did find another genuine copy of FFVI on the Amazon marketplace. So I took a few pictures for comparisons sake. It's the EU version too, so the cover varies a little from the above, but you get the idea.

Interesting to point out that EU versions of GBA games are a lot less likely to be copies, as no one cares about Europe.

So if I've learned anything from this little venture. It's that the embossed sticker numbers are king for discerning what's real and what's not. Just they're close to impossible to make out in most Ebay photos...

The fake Wario Ware I got in the Philippines died lost it's ability to save- I'd unlocked all of the extra minigames and stuff, too...