Pokemon Green Original Japanese cart issues, missingno for all pokemon

Years ago I picked up an original pokemon green version at a flea market. Unfortunately it doesn't work right. when it gets to the title screen with the logo, and the character with pokemon switching out next to the character, the pokemon dont appear right, they all appear as messed up pixels kind of like what missingno looks like. When I get to the game, the pokemon in-game are like this too. The characters themselves and the rest of the game looks normal. Also, the game never saves, even with a new battery it never gives the option to continue. I tried reflowing all the solder joints inside the cartridge, cleaned the contacts, changed the battery, nothing seems to work. I also tried to play it on a Japanese gameboy, a gameboy light, a gamecube, and a super gameboy, same effect on all consoles. Does anyone know whats wrong or have any idea as to how I can possibly fix this? thanks for any help!

Home screen with switching pokemon


Someones avatar, I think its Prof. Oak


Gary's name selection


The main avatar as it converts to sprite form


Everythings normal here, no pokemon are shown


Bulbasaur's info screen


Ash and Gary


Bulbasaur and Charmander (I think)


These pictures are from the pokemon game cartridge being played on a north american super gameboy (snes)

 

Swap the mask rom for a programmed piece of flash.

 

Damaged MBC chip maybe? Not able to access the ROM bank(s) that contain the Pokemon graphics anymore, same for the battery-backed RAM? Though I'm not sure if it can even break like that from normal use.

 

It's unlikely but possible that a corrupted save can affect the rest of the game code. Some buffer gets overflowed, overwrites RAM related to the game runtime, then graphics are loaded from the wrong offset and hosed.

Your options are either desolder and resolder the battery or use some flasher hardware to erase the SRAM. I can add a mode to agbd if this is of interest.

 

Is it a bootleg?

 

Buy one of these: http://www.rival-corp.com/, dump the ROM and see if it boots in an emulator. If so, the ROM is good and it is probably the MBC5. If not, then the ROM is damaged.

 

Not sure what you mean, I know that a flash chip can be used in place of the rom chip, but wouldnt know where to start or what to look for...

Again, I wouldn't know where to begin

No, afaik its an original cart, looking at it, its all the right labels and markings and inside, the pcb looks like what an original should look like.

 

Look for damaged traces on the game pcb, even if it's just a bit discoloured it could be a bad trace, use a multimeter to check connectivity between two vias or a via and a component. Bridge bad traces with thin wire or use a conductive pen to fill in the broken trace.

 

Just to confirm, the cart *should* look like this one, based on your screengrabs:



If it says 'Pokemon' on it, or looks like a US cartridge, you may have a bootleg.

 

Yeah thats exactly what it looks like. I never had any doubts it as an original, I know what to look out for.

I ill try this as soon as I can get the cart open, idr how i opened them before, and I changed all the batteries in my gameboy games XD

 

I have a RED cart with the exact same symptom, game works fine but pokemon pictures are messed up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV5Rr2QK0R4

BTW the cartridge was heavily water damaged (and had some mud on it) so it's certainly why, cleaning it didn't really help...

 

Yeah, thats the EXACT same problem my green cart has. Mine was in good, clean shape when I got it though. Now its a bit tanned but the label is still clean.