Mystery: Pokemon Yellow plays on GBC but not working GBA

[Vencabot]

Hello, strangers. I'm a lifetime gamer that's just recently rediscovered and begun building my 'retro' gaming collection. This is my first post on the forum and my first day visiting, actually, but, based on my Google searches, I figured that some of you sages might be able to help me out with a bizarre problem that's driving me insane.

When my brother and I were young, our parents bought us each a copy of Pokemon Yellow on the same day, and we played it simultaneously (sweet, right?). I've just finished cleaning both of the cartridges and was testing them in my Gameboy Advance SP when I was disappointed to find that, while one worked perfectly fine, the other would freeze with a white screen and a soft buzzing sound whenever it tried to open the game's title screen -- that is, the game makes it well past the 'Game Boy, Nintendo' splash when the console is turned on and plays the game's pre-title cinematic (the traditional Pokemon battle) with no flaws, but, when that's finished (or when I try to skip it), the game just freezes as described... but the other, identical cartridge worked fine.

Well, I figured that something was obviously wrong with the cartridge, which I thought was strange because I've found during my cartridge cleaning / testing adventures that classic cartridges are quite robust, to say the least... I've never had a problem with any of them that couldn't be resolved with a good cleaning. I chocked it up to the idea that the game might have somehow been submerged in water at some point or something like that, or maybe the save-battery was dead and attempting to load it (for the 'New Game / Continue' option on the title screen) was causing the game to freeze, even though, in my experience, a dead battery would just cause the game to fail to save. Oh well.

A while later, I decided to try the game on my old Gameboy Color, which is the same console that I used to play the game on as a child, and it works fine... both cartridges do on the GBC. Plug it back into the SP, and it freezes, but this is an SP that I've cleaned and which has had no problem playing any other GBA, GBC, or GB game that I've thrown at it -- including, if you'll allow me to repeat myself, an apparently identical cartridge of Pokemon Yellow.

This is not a problem that I'm expecting a resolution to that will allow me to play this game on my SP; I've given up on that. At this point, I'm just maddeningly curious: can any expert here think of any plausible reason why, between two identical, clean, working copies of Pokemon Yellow, one would freeze specifically and consistently at the title screen on a working-order Gameboy Advance SP?

One more detail: there are very few results on Google that describe a similar situation as to the one that I'm having, and none have reasonable explanations, but, strangely, one of those results described the exact same issue as occurring on Pokemon Red: the game boots and plays the Pokemon combat cinematic just fine, but then freezes with a white screen and a soft buzz when attempting to open the title screen. In that post, I don't believe that the OP specified what console he was trying to play the game on, but the specifics of the freeze seem too similar to be completely unrelated.

Why in God's name does this cartridge work on a GBC but not on a GBA SP... especially when another copy of Yellow works fine on the same SP. Thank you for your help.

-David

[CRTGAMER]

Could be a lot of variables, perhaps the GBA contacts are sprung just enough to not connect fully with one of the Pokemon carts? Theoretically both carts are identical, but one could be off just enough to make a difference?

How exactly did you clean the GBA, Gameboy and individual carts. In the case of the carts, a full disassembly to ensure any residue is not left behind?

[Hobie-wan]

That's very interesting. I ended up with a copy of Red that did just that when I tried it on my SP. I didn't have any older systems to try it on and couldn't see anything wrong. I couldn't get it to work despite cleaning it to spotlessness either. Since I wasn't really interested in Pokemon anyway and was just testing for selling it on, I assumed it was dead. I actually sent it to another member to see if they'd have any luck.

[Mod_Man_Extreme]

Depending on the revision of the software on the cart and respective hardware (GB/GBC vs GBA) lots of things can change.

For example thanks to the use of modified and non-identical chips on the classic GB/GBC side of the GBA hardware there are lots of little irregularities. For example, sound, and color can sometimes be slightly gritty or raspy, and over-saturated respectively when played on a GBA, or GBA SP.

Link's Awakening DX is a great example of this. When played on a GameBoy Advance the sound is slightly clippy and grainy and the colors on screen are darker than they should be. Pop it in a GBC immediately afterwards (or even better try side by side with the GBA if you can) and you'll note how the hardware differences can change the look and feel of a game.

[Ziggy]

That's very interesting. I ended up with a copy of Red that did just that when I tried it on my SP. I didn't have any older systems to try it on and couldn't see anything wrong. I couldn't get it to work despite cleaning it to spotlessness either. Since I wasn't really interested in Pokemon anyway and was just testing for selling it on, I assumed it was dead. I actually sent it to another member to see if they'd have any luck.

Yeah, I still have that cart. It went off to the "pile" of stuff that I had hopes of fixing but never got around to. I remember trying it on my original GB and Super GB, and it froze at the title screen with both. However, I now have a mess of other GB handhelds: GCB, original GBA and about 3 GBA SPs. I could try it on all of them and see what happens.

I had my theories of what was wrong with it, but I'll have to rethink them now. If multiple people report having it freeze right at the title screen, but work fine up until then, then bit rot of the mask ROM is kind of unlikely. What a coincidence that would have to be. That might point to what the problem is though. I pretty positive the battery wouldn't cause this. When the cart is powered on, the battery is pretty much disconnected, so being dead shouldn't effect anything. But the title screen does load the new game/continue options, so maybe there's a problem with the SRAM or the logic that controls it, and that causes the game to lock up.

[Hobie-wan]

For me, that Red cart was fine at the title. When you hit start, the professor would come up and then it would freeze and play a sour note squeak. As I recall it didn't matter if the original dead battery was in, a good one, or none at all.

[Vencabot]

Holy @#$%, guys; I wasn't expecting this kind of response, especially so quickly. You guys are amazing... I think that I'm gonna really like being a part of this community, haha.

As for how I clean my games and my systems, I don't disassemble anything. I'm sure that some of you more hard-core collectors would scoff at that, and I imagine that I'll get to that point before too long (I'm buying my first pair of game bits tonight, actually). I clean the contacts of my games with a q-tip and some 99% rubbing alcohol, which I immediately mop up carefully with a vigorous scrubbing with a dry q-tip and then blow with some compressed air. On top of that, I also use an eraser on the contacts, which I understand would be more effective if I disassembled the carts but which seems to work pretty well even just poking the eraser into the bottoms of the carts and rubbing the contacts that way.

As for my consoles, I use a little bit of rubbing alcohol, a q-tip, and a thin, plastic card to clean the slots, along with compressed air and a tooth pick for gently removing any larger (but still obviously minute) debris that I can see with a flashlight that might be jammed in the slot.

I imagine that I could do an even more thorough cleaning as I pick up new skills, but I'd be surprised if the cleanliness of the cartridge or the slot were the culprit at this point, since none of my other games have any problem starting or playing in the SP, nor does the offending Yellow have any problem starting in the GBC.

I'm far from being an expert, so excuse me if this is a ridiculous theory, but, when I was a kid, I used to use a 'Mega Memory Card' for my GB games, which would allow you to back up and restore saves on GB cartridges. Because I theorized that a borked save was somehow causing this behavior -- and because I further theorized that the borked save might have been somehow caused by this third-party 'memory card' -- I actually dug the old card up and used it to clear the data on the offending Yellow (I couldn't clear the data using the in-game method because it has to be done from the title screen). Playing the Yellow on the GBC shows that the data had indeed been erased and I even started and saved a new game, hoping that would help, but no, it still doesn't load past the pre-title cinematic on the SP. That being said, could the use of a third-party memory card on the game cause it to... permanently not work on an SP but work fine on a GBC? It seems so ridiculous, haha.

Also, I know that catching Missing No. can corrupt save data in classic Pokemon games, and my brother and I loved the @#$% out of some Missing No. I just... still don't see how that would cause the game to not work on a GBA when it works fine on a GBC, especially after the save data has been erased.

Thanks for all of your suggestions; it's all very educational. Interesting that at least one other person here has had a similar problem with another Pokemon game. I've never had a consistent freezing problem with any cartridge-based game, and, again, no problems with any cartridge-based games -- period -- that couldn't be solved by cleaning the contacts and which resulting in anything but the game failing to start altogether or starting in a glitchy state.

After your suggestions, I'm going to have to look very carefully at the contacts of both copies of Yellow to see if I can visually notice even a tiny difference. I wonder if it's possible that, as suggested, one cartridge is just... slightly... misshaped such that it doesn't contact completely with the slot of the GBA. It just seems so weird that a problem like that would cause such a consistent freeze at the title screen when the pre-title intro isn't affected at all, graphically or in terms of sound or control (can skip the intro with a button press, but it still freezes when trying to get to the title).

In Pokemon Yellow, at the title screen, Pikachu says, "Pika!," using a digitized sound sample, which was pretty impressive at the time (I remember, haha). That's an unusual-enough occurrence that I'd almost want to say that it has something to do with it... like, when loading that sample before displaying the screen, the game freezes... but, again, the other Pokemon Yellow does it just fine, and the offending one does it fine on the GBC.

Weirdness, but it's been fun reading your guys' posts! Thanks for chiming in.

-David

[Bagel]

There's a tiny little switch that gets pressed when you stick a classic gameboy game into a Gameboy Advance (if you look at the back of a GBA cart, you'll see grooves in the bottom corners on the back of it.) so by chance do any other classic gameboy games not work in it either or is it just yellow?

[Admiral Zackbar]

Forgive me for reviving an old thread, but I may have a solution and this is the only legitimate discussion I have found on this topic.

My problem was not with Pokemon specifically, but the symptoms were nearly the same. My LoZ: Oracle of Seasons game would display a Gameboy and Nintendo logo, meaning the system knew there was a legitimate game inside, but would then go straight to a white screen with no sound. I tried cleaning it as best I could, tested my system, tested the game in other systems, but had no luck.

It was only because the case is clear that I noticed the circuit board moved inside the cartridge when I inserted it into my SP. I thought it was a slim chance that this was the cause, but I opened the case up and wedged some paper between the top of the case and the top of the circuit board. This keeps the board from being pushed up into the case when inserted, making sure the pins line up. To my surprise, it worked! The Capcom logo showed up and the opening scene played like normal.

Hopefully this works for the Pokemon carts as well. Let me know if you need more details or if anything is unclear. Let me know how it turns out! Good luck : )

PS: one obvious clue that this could be the cause is the cart rattles if you shake it.

[flojocabron]

cool.

I have a theory too, but I guess your answer hit it on the head too.

I have my original silver GBA SP and its pretty beat up. I bought it new in the early 00's. Its gotten heavy usage and I've had it cleaned multiple times before. Now its my extra gameboy. When my little cousins come over, thats the one they use.

This beat up little gba doesnt take some gameboy and color games sometimes.

Especially on a portable system where its being moved around a lot by little kids.

in those sudden movements or even setting it down, the cart freezes!

I have reason to believe that the gameboy games size may be heavy on the pins of the gameboy advance!

Especially in the position its in. Hanging upside down an sticking out.

Some classic gameboy games work okay in it, and some freeze. Normal gba games dont have any problems either.

~~~~~~

A friend of mine wanted to play Links Awakening on his gameboy player. But he was getting frustrated with the game not working very well on the Gamecube. He solved his problem by sticking some paper along with the cart into the gameboy players slot.

he says it worked fine when the did this. But I'm not sure how much paper he used. Shouldn't be that much.

Again my thoughts is with the pins not connecting right, and the game sticking out too much.

Also your fix, Admiral; its a good idea too.