For obvious reasons, today's daily question is aimed squarely at those of you who still have physical copies of Zelda cartridges. I have a bunch of Zelda games on cartridge myself, and have since The Legend of Zelda first went up for sale.But the copy of NES Zelda I currently have is not my first copy. The battery died on that one back when new copies of the game were still available. It's been replaced a couple of times, and the "NES Classics" grey-cartridge version is still holding on.
These games were replaced, of course, before I realized that you could change the battery in NES cartridges. It was also back when, if you wanted a triwing screwdriver, you had to go through one of the janky mail-order outfits found in the back of Electronic Gaming Monthly instead of some janky dude on eBay.
Have you had a similar issue? Has your NES Zelda cartridge forgotten how you totally beat the second quest? Have you had to replace your Link to the Past, or its battery? And, for a bonus question, can you name at least one other item in video gaming that, annoyingly, requires constant replacement of CR2032 batteries?
You kids and your flash memory. You don't know how good you have it!
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
10-03-2007 @ 9:44AM
watrobb said...
Pokemon Gold and Silver?
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10-03-2007 @ 9:51AM
fdisk_format said...
I have had to replace the battery in Zelda and in Baseball Stars many times over the years. Glad to have flash memory in carts now.
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10-03-2007 @ 9:51AM
notsonic said...
dreamcast vmus!
and sega saturns!
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10-03-2007 @ 10:09AM
onepointfivevolt said...
Honestly, not a single one of my NES carts has died, ever. I have a hard time believing that, myself, but yeah. Everything is safe and sound.
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10-03-2007 @ 10:11AM
Wilerson said...
@3: And Sega CDs!
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10-03-2007 @ 10:14AM
MrTyzik said...
I'd rather play them emulated than tamper with my beautiful gold carts! Not even to replace the battery. What's done is done and I will never look down on them even though they have forgotten who I am.
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10-03-2007 @ 10:32AM
Pizza Pasta said...
I refused to hold reset. Even when I was 7 years old I thought it was absurd to have to hold reset when shutting off my NES to ensure that my progress had been saved.
I payed the consequences several times.
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10-03-2007 @ 11:03AM
Donald said...
watrobb is correct.
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10-03-2007 @ 11:19AM
T3H WICKERMAN (FDF) said...
As of a few years ago Nintendo would replace the battery for you. You just had to mail it to them. Not sure if they still do this, but my orginal copy's b82rz still work.
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10-03-2007 @ 12:26PM
unreal mccoy said...
I have a hard time believing that anyone's batteries still work after 20 years. My Zelda carts stopped saving reliably in the early 90s.
The first time it burned me was in 1993 when I was trying to complete The Legend of Zelda without the use of a sword. I made it all the way to the 6th dungeon, then my saved data disappeared. I was so pissed. I never tried it again after that.
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10-03-2007 @ 1:19PM
Orville the Unfathomable Time Walrus said...
I just went through my budding NES collection, the following required batteries:
Cyber Stadium Series: Base Wars
Dragon Warrior
Kirby's Adventure
Nobunaga's Ambition
Shadowgate
Ultima: Warriors of Destiny
Zelda II: Adventure of Link
Out of those, only Base Wars and Shadowgate have dead batteries. I suppose I'm pretty lucky.
And I should also mention that I'm pretty paranoid about Pokemon Gold and Silver dying on me. Between the two, I'm pretty sure I have 500 hours logged. Don't blame me, though; I was pretty bored when I was 12.
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10-03-2007 @ 3:00PM
Alisha Karabinus said...
I hope you replaced the batteries on Shadowgate, considering it is one of the most awesome games ever.
/rabid for Shadowgate
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10-03-2007 @ 4:52PM
MIke said...
I bought a copy of Phantasy Star IV only to find out the battery was dead. tryed to replace it but failed miserably.
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10-03-2007 @ 10:02PM
TE-Ryan said...
The only cartridge battery I've ever had die on me is the one in my copy of Pokémon Silver (and it previously belonged to my brother, so it was almost dead by the time I got it from him). So I'm kinda hoping that Nintendo does remakes for that series of Pokémon games too, because I only ever got to finish it once, and that was playing the Japanese ROM, and it's much less fulfilling that way.
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10-03-2007 @ 10:28PM
jamesFF said...
I bought a used copy of the Legend of Zelda and the memory still works on it.
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10-04-2007 @ 10:31AM
Ujn Hunter said...
yea baby! my dreamcast vmu's ate those things like pancakes! and with the quickness i might add! my saturn has also had to endure a couple replacements.
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10-04-2007 @ 11:56PM
sean said...
The 2032 in my neo geo pocket color just died after 10 years. Sniff sniff... I'll miss you lil buddy! I could replace it, but I don't know if the feeling would be the same.
-Sean
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