Cartridge battery database
Game Boy Color games with save batteries
1998–2002 · Typical cell: CR1616 (CR2025 on some boards) · 18 of 18 listed cartridges carry a battery
Game Boy Color is the generation where the coin cell picked up a second job. Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal, the Zelda Oracle games and the Harvest Moon titles all track real time, and the same battery that keeps your save alive also runs that clock.
That dual role produces a distinctive failure: the game still plays, the save still loads, but time-based events stop happening — or the cart warns you the internal clock has stopped. That's a battery on its way out, caught early.
Battery purpose
Showing 18 games
Dead save battery?
If your retro game no longer saves — or you're worried about losing a decades-old file — I can replace the cartridge battery properly, with a tabbed cell soldered to the board and save-tested afterwards.
Game Boy Color battery questions
Why does Pokémon Crystal say the internal battery has run dry?
The cartridge runs a real-time clock off the same cell that backs the save. When the voltage drops, the game detects the clock has stopped and tells you. Saves may still work for a while, but the cell is at the end of its life.
Do Gold and Silver lose saves and the clock together?
They're powered by the same cell, so they fail around the same time — the clock usually complains first and the saves follow. Replacing the cell restores both, though the existing file only survives if there's still charge to work with.
Which Game Boy Color games have real-time clocks?
Pokémon Gold, Silver and Crystal, Zelda: Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons, the Harvest Moon GBC titles and a few others. They're listed as Save + RTC in the table above.
Looking at another system?
The full database covers NES, SNES, N64, Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Genesis and 32X in one searchable table.