Nothing's more frustrating than playing your old copy of Pokemon Gold, Silver, Red, or Blue for Game Boy and discovering that your game didn't save.

Why won't my Game Boy game save?

Most Game Boy cartridges that allow games to be saved contain a small internal battery to store your save states. Over time, this battery degrades and needs replacement.

See, back when these games were developed, flash memory was still super expensive. As a result volatile memory, powered by a small battery, was often used instead. NES, SNES and N64 cartridges also used such batteries for storing saved games.

This guide will show you how to replace the battery in your Nintendo Gameboy cartridge in about 10 minutes.

Watch the video, or continue below

I made a video tutorial that will walk you through the process. Or, if you prefer, you can continue reading the text and photo-based version of this guide below!