I just started collecting retro games (mainly nintendo). I had a decent little collection of Gameboy, Colour and Advance games back in the day. Turns out... four of them are real and I have 12 fake ones. Nice. I will say though: my Fire Red is fake but I played the hell out of it back in the day, it STILL works and has my save file from back then so hey ho it aint all bad. I'm still going to look for a real one, but I guess some fakes are better than others.
If you can see my comment, I had a fake emerald gba game card but I took good care of it but still played hundreds of hours and finished the game multiple times, it still works great to this day.
Great video you hit a point not many people cover. If you look at most popular videos about spotting fake cartridges on RUclips, so many people skip over the fact that games from the NES to GBA have numbers and even sometimes a letter along with it pressed into them just like this man showed.
I sold a game on ebay. I was told it was genuine by the guy i bought it off. Then I got a negative feedback. So I ended all my listings and started youtubing for how to identify fakes. I watched 2 videos and yours was the third. Better than the others by far. My compliments.
@@legoboy-ox2kx OK cool cos I have this platinum (was given to me, don't know where he got it) Keeps freezing? But as far as I could see it looked fine.. I can't test any other games as its the only ds one I've got Yeh my file deleted when angrily I ripped the cart out during a freeze while shiny hunting
@@Fu9280 it could be a fake board in a real cart, or the memory on the chip could be faulty, I couldn't say without looking at it, but fake DS games are generally easy to spot
Ebay is like the BEST and GREATEST place to find complete in box games. I’ve actually just recently picked up Golden Sun at a retro gaming store irl and it turned out to be a fake copy with the real inserts and all I agree with you though Ebay is a great place to buy GBA games.
After testing my 14 GBA games I'm glad all of them passed the mainboard test. Even the two I just bought with their stickers removed completely. One of them was Yoshi's Island as shown in the video. I made a replacement sticker for it, but since the original cartridge sticker looks so boring, I made a customized one out of the original SNES cover art. And it looks gorgeous, even though collectors might immediately say it's a fake when looking at it.
Even if you know what to look for, it can be difficult as there's always new carts coming out. Sounds like you've been lucky with the games you bought though.
The rating logo was wrong too. The E was too thin and slanted upward, common on fake games. Also the nintendo seal should be round and say nintendo seal of quality on eropean games. On an american game it should be oval and say nintendo seal of quality on games mde before 2003 and just nintendo seal on games made after that.
Thanks a lot for this video. This has confirmed I definitely just received 2 fake games. Possibly 3, but I'm waiting on a tri-wing screwdriver to confirm the third is 100% fake. A word of caution to anyone buying a copy of Castlevania Aria Of Sorrow (not Castlevania Double Pack), if you put it in a DS system along with Dawn Of Sorrow, a real AoS cartridge will trigger a secret that gives you an extra item ingame, however fake ones do not.
Great video. I recently bought a tri-wing driver to check to see if my carts are authentic. Most of the cartridge covers slide down and off, easily. A few of them were really stuck. I thought it might be a sign of a fake (perhaps adding a little glue to discourage disassembly /pcb checks). For example, the cover on my copy of Mario Kart was really stuck but it eventually came off and the board appears genuine. Do you have any idea why some are so much more difficult to remove? Is it just a question of age, perhaps some micro warping of the plastics? I was really afraid that I was going to break something, given the amount of force required. Conversely, most other carts came apart with just a gentle downward press.
I have a few GBA games and one of them (Spiderman 3) turned out to be fake. There's no number stamp on the sticker. Print not as clear (can barely make out the "content rated by ESRB" in the rating logo). No Nintendo seal. The sticker itself is slightly offset. The tri-wing screw is white (other legit ones are slightly yellow/brass tinted). Opening up the cartridge revealed the following: Cheaper shell - softer plastic, bends easier than others, different casting of the clips and the inside. The PCB was completely different to the others - no Nintendo logo or anything like that, black blob (even though it had a separate battery on the side!), contact pins were a different shade, contact pins had irregular hole heights, there was a random wire going from one of the chips to the battery - generally looked messy compared to legit carts. Nice one, now I know how to spot fakes :)
Golden sun is not a real game EDIT: okay golden sun is a real game I just thought you were talking about a Pokemon fan game called Golden sun my mistake
thanks for the info chief, made me realize the great deal i got when i was a wee kiddo wasnt the greatest deal, though if i remember they weren't advertised as real, i am just dumb
I have same problem with my Garfield and His Nine Lives, I found if I flick the power switch just right to cause a very short interruption, the game reboots and detects the save. Mines definitely a fake and it has a problem reading the game save memory.
Does anyone know if the "not for resale" gba games also have the little indents on the front of the cartridge? I've been looking around but because I don't have any Idk and can't find anything about it online.
Don't know if you live near glasgow, but Gforce near Central train station sells a lot of fakes at full price (hard to find titles like LOZ Minish Cap and Pokemon games)
RUclips's CC is absolutely hilarious. Those 'holes' above the pins you pointed out? Those are called "vias", like via the Latin word. They tie one plane of a circuit board to another.
I think I got a real cartridge, it has the right circuit board and plays right but the circuit board moves in the cartridge case and the sticker doesn't have the embossing
Nintendo carts tend to wiggle inside, making a rattling noise. This is true on legit Game Boy, GBA, DS/3DS and even Switch cartridges. I also have one game that is legit, but there are scratches on it, so it took me ages to figure out that one of the "scratches" has the number "41" fused with it.
I just checked it. I can't see a date on it, but I bought it in Bangkok in Thailand so it wouldn't surprise me if it was fake (it still has a sticker from the MBK shopping centre on it).
I have picked up nintendo ds that supports gba carts, but have quite given up on getting gba carts for it: everything on ebay looks fake now or impossible to tell from pics... One looks very convincing but ff5 cart had epoxy blobs inside instead of chips that were in that us version I have been able to google :( sold as genuine with pcb photos even...
That's what has put me off collecting games for older systems. I don't want to spend a lot of time bidding on carts and then have to fight for refunds after finding out they're fake.
This is an amazing video thank you so much! I'm trying to build an eBay store but want to be sure that my products that I source are real so Great video man!
Since I seen all of your games except for the fake in this video are CE marked what you only see on European cartridges I'm not sure if you will say if it has a ESRB rating it's fake also the ESRB rating on the fake is thinner and more slanted (what I know is the real one is less slanted and fatter)
hi i have some fake ones. i was looking through my collection and i collected those with missing numbers on them. but mario kart super circuit looks very real. it has the same art picture from eur but is missing the numbers that should be there. so im not sure if it is real or not but i believe its fake. does not have the battery inside and missing the number. on ebay i found a similar one that had a number just to see where it should be located. mine is a very good fake
I recently bought a Game Boy Advance and I bought the Centipede Break Out and Warlords cart and it says 20 and E3 engraved on the cart and I also got a Beyblade Vforce cartridge and it just says 2 on it but everything else is fine and the regions are USA. Can you tell me if these are fake ones? It would help alot
No more manufacture original GameBoy/Color/Advance Cartridge so why some people looking original cartridge? the only available on this day is fake or made in china
PCBs are very resilient, especially original ones. Used Game Boy games work absolutely fine today, 30+ years later. Same goes for even older systems. Fakes are a novelty and nothing more, no serious collector (of ANYTHING, really, not just game carts) would want fakes in their collection. If you don't have a problem with them - why not skip the novelty and inconvenience of carts, get an EZ-FLASH IV and load it up with a bunch of ROMs? That way you're at least not supporting chinese pirates/bootleggers in the process.
HAHAHA Right so my GBA Rhythm Heaven’s data corrupted the day after I completed it. I go onto this video to see if it is a fake. I look for cartridge colour, Rhythm Heaven has about a million different colours so I wasn’t sure. I check for the number indents, can’t find them... Hmm... I checked the circuit board and it’s all legit looking until I look at the Nintendo Logo. It doesn’t say Nintendo... IT SAYS NIHLEHDO!!! Looks like I’ll need to buy a new Rhythm Heaven cartridge :|
Thank you for this info. I’ve been trying to collect retro video game system. I already have a PlayStation 2 with numerous ps1 games. And started collecting Nintendo systems as well. I have a venasaur gameboy advance coming special edition. And ended up finding an authentic Japanese version of Pokémon crystal still in the box. But this is good to know because I see fake games al lathe time and refuse to buy them. 😂😂
@@KevinMuldoon yeah and in my city not a lot of places have old retro games. If they do they’re taken off the shelves in a matter of hours. I’ve bought a couple Japanese versions of certain games like as I said crystal and I have leaf green coming too. Which I don’t personally mind since I know some Japanese but not a ton. It’s rare for Japanese versions of the game to be reproductions because they’re less valuable since they have a limited audience. Most countries can speak English that what makes them valuable. But yes it’s a major problem and really appreciate the info.
idk if mine Zelda Minish Cap is fake or not. If it's fake it looks pretty real. With the "GAME BOY ADVANCE" no misspell. BUT IT DOESNT work! Though the code thing looks real, AGB-BZME-USA with a white yellowish design with the "Official Nintendo" E for everyone. And no capital...ETC. I really wanna know if mine's fake :(
I just started collecting retro games (mainly nintendo). I had a decent little collection of Gameboy, Colour and Advance games back in the day. Turns out... four of them are real and I have 12 fake ones. Nice.
I will say though: my Fire Red is fake but I played the hell out of it back in the day, it STILL works and has my save file from back then so hey ho it aint all bad. I'm still going to look for a real one, but I guess some fakes are better than others.
If you can see my comment, I had a fake emerald gba game card but I took good care of it but still played hundreds of hours and finished the game multiple times, it still works great to this day.
Great video you hit a point not many people cover. If you look at most popular videos about spotting fake cartridges on RUclips, so many people skip over the fact that games from the NES to GBA have numbers and even sometimes a letter along with it pressed into them just like this man showed.
Glad you enjoyed the video 👍
I sold a game on ebay. I was told it was genuine by the guy i bought it off. Then I got a negative feedback. So I ended all my listings and started youtubing for how to identify fakes. I watched 2 videos and yours was the third. Better than the others by far. My compliments.
That's kind of you to say. Sorry you got stung by eBay. It's why I've avoided buying older games. Too many scammers.
The best way to know is to use a Y screwdriver and open it and see the inside. If there is a blob of any kind, that is a fake.
I have no problem spotting fakes with just a glance now. Pokemon games are so hard to fake.
@@legoboy-ox2kx what if it looks the same
@@Fu9280 wdym? Unless you meticulously make your own counterfeits, the fake Pokemon games from China look like hot dog water lol.
@@legoboy-ox2kx OK cool cos I have this platinum (was given to me, don't know where he got it)
Keeps freezing? But as far as I could see it looked fine.. I can't test any other games as its the only ds one I've got
Yeh my file deleted when angrily I ripped the cart out during a freeze while shiny hunting
@@Fu9280 it could be a fake board in a real cart, or the memory on the chip could be faulty, I couldn't say without looking at it, but fake DS games are generally easy to spot
@@legoboy-ox2kx alright thanks anyway 👍
Ebay is like the BEST and GREATEST place to find complete in box games. I’ve actually just recently picked up Golden Sun at a retro gaming store irl and it turned out to be a fake copy with the real inserts and all
I agree with you though Ebay is a great place to buy GBA games.
After testing my 14 GBA games I'm glad all of them passed the mainboard test. Even the two I just bought with their stickers removed completely. One of them was Yoshi's Island as shown in the video. I made a replacement sticker for it, but since the original cartridge sticker looks so boring, I made a customized one out of the original SNES cover art. And it looks gorgeous, even though collectors might immediately say it's a fake when looking at it.
Even if you know what to look for, it can be difficult as there's always new carts coming out.
Sounds like you've been lucky with the games you bought though.
The rating logo was wrong too. The E was too thin and slanted upward, common on fake games. Also the nintendo seal should be round and say nintendo seal of quality on eropean games. On an american game it should be oval and say nintendo seal of quality on games mde before 2003 and just nintendo seal on games made after that.
Thanks a lot for this video. This has confirmed I definitely just received 2 fake games. Possibly 3, but I'm waiting on a tri-wing screwdriver to confirm the third is 100% fake.
A word of caution to anyone buying a copy of Castlevania Aria Of Sorrow (not Castlevania Double Pack), if you put it in a DS system along with Dawn Of Sorrow, a real AoS cartridge will trigger a secret that gives you an extra item ingame, however fake ones do not.
Great video. I recently bought a tri-wing driver to check to see if my carts are authentic. Most of the cartridge covers slide down and off, easily. A few of them were really stuck. I thought it might be a sign of a fake (perhaps adding a little glue to discourage disassembly /pcb checks). For example, the cover on my copy of Mario Kart was really stuck but it eventually came off and the board appears genuine.
Do you have any idea why some are so much more difficult to remove? Is it just a question of age, perhaps some micro warping of the plastics? I was really afraid that I was going to break something, given the amount of force required. Conversely, most other carts came apart with just a gentle downward press.
I'm not sure. Perhaps different manufacturers were used by companies for their own games.
One ingenious method to sacrifice a fake GBA cart is to burn it!
I have a few GBA games and one of them (Spiderman 3) turned out to be fake.
There's no number stamp on the sticker. Print not as clear (can barely make out the "content rated by ESRB" in the rating logo). No Nintendo seal. The sticker itself is slightly offset. The tri-wing screw is white (other legit ones are slightly yellow/brass tinted).
Opening up the cartridge revealed the following:
Cheaper shell - softer plastic, bends easier than others, different casting of the clips and the inside. The PCB was completely different to the others - no Nintendo logo or anything like that, black blob (even though it had a separate battery on the side!), contact pins were a different shade, contact pins had irregular hole heights, there was a random wire going from one of the chips to the battery - generally looked messy compared to legit carts.
Nice one, now I know how to spot fakes :)
Thanks for this! I'm picking up a copy of Golden Sun for the GBA tomorrow. At least now I now it is authentic.
Golden sun is not a real game EDIT: okay golden sun is a real game I just thought you were talking about a Pokemon fan game called Golden sun my mistake
thanks for the info chief, made me realize the great deal i got when i was a wee kiddo wasnt the greatest deal, though if i remember they weren't advertised as real, i am just dumb
It can be hard to spot them. Companies that are producing these fakes are always refining the cartridges.
What's the little glass tube on the bottom left and what's inside of it?
My Hamtaro: Rainbow Rescue I got long ago kept going back to New Game; its saved data kept getting erased each time I turn it on. Is that really fake?
I have same problem with my Garfield and His Nine Lives, I found if I flick the power switch just right to cause a very short interruption, the game reboots and detects the save. Mines definitely a fake and it has a problem reading the game save memory.
if the game has imprinted numbers on the label then my bet is the games internal battery is dry
Does anyone know if the "not for resale" gba games also have the little indents on the front of the cartridge? I've been looking around but because I don't have any Idk and can't find anything about it online.
I am not able to get originals so I am heading for the chinese made
Don't know if you live near glasgow, but Gforce near Central train station sells a lot of fakes at full price (hard to find titles like LOZ Minish Cap and Pokemon games)
I know where that is. That's disappointing. A lot of people will be buying them not knowing they're fakes.
RUclips's CC is absolutely hilarious. Those 'holes' above the pins you pointed out? Those are called "vias", like via the Latin word. They tie one plane of a circuit board to another.
Ahhh nice. I didn't know that. Thanks for letting me know. I'd actually love to play around with circuits more. It's just hard to find the time.
I think I got a real cartridge, it has the right circuit board and plays right but the circuit board moves in the cartridge case and the sticker doesn't have the embossing
Nintendo carts tend to wiggle inside, making a rattling noise. This is true on legit Game Boy, GBA, DS/3DS and even Switch cartridges.
I also have one game that is legit, but there are scratches on it, so it took me ages to figure out that one of the "scratches" has the number "41" fused with it.
You need to check if it had number, i got a fake one
@@G_Fantastic that's what I'd meant by embossing, everything else about the cartridge is up to standard, even the board.
i have purposely bought a couple of repros / fakes due to not being able to get hold of the original game ( the metroid games )
My GBA Mario kart super circuit EU copy say's that its made in 2000 while released in 2001 fake or real?
Yeah that sounds very suspicious.
@@KevinMuldoon do you got the same copy?
I just checked it. I can't see a date on it, but I bought it in Bangkok in Thailand so it wouldn't surprise me if it was fake (it still has a sticker from the MBK shopping centre on it).
@@KevinMuldoon the label has the right date but the cartridge has a different one
@@daveykonijnenberg951 I would open the cartridge up to take a closer look.
I have picked up nintendo ds that supports gba carts, but have quite given up on getting gba carts for it: everything on ebay looks fake now or impossible to tell from pics... One looks very convincing but ff5 cart had epoxy blobs inside instead of chips that were in that us version I have been able to google :( sold as genuine with pcb photos even...
That's what has put me off collecting games for older systems. I don't want to spend a lot of time bidding on carts and then have to fight for refunds after finding out they're fake.
In terms of gameplay how much difference between sound and graphics ?
If the ROM is the same, there should be no difference.
This is an amazing video thank you so much! I'm trying to build an eBay store but want to be sure that my products that I source are real so Great video man!
You're welcome. Glad you found it useful.
Wait so the indent in the middle says it is fake?
Also notice that the copper part is not copper on that fake one
Since I seen all of your games except for the fake in this video are CE marked what you only see on European cartridges I'm not sure if you will say if it has a ESRB rating it's fake also the ESRB rating on the fake is thinner and more slanted (what I know is the real one is less slanted and fatter)
This video is beyond godlik
hi i have some fake ones. i was looking through my collection and i collected those with missing numbers on them. but mario kart super circuit looks very real. it has the same art picture from eur but is missing the numbers that should be there. so im not sure if it is real or not but i believe its fake. does not have the battery inside and missing the number. on ebay i found a similar one that had a number just to see where it should be located. mine is a very good fake
I recently bought a couple fake games off of ebay and I sent them back.
Sorry to hear that. That's frustrating.
I recently bought a Game Boy Advance and I bought the Centipede Break Out and Warlords cart and it says 20 and E3 engraved on the cart and I also got a Beyblade Vforce cartridge and it just says 2 on it but everything else is fine and the regions are USA. Can you tell me if these are fake ones? It would help alot
I'm not sure. It's difficult to say without examining the cart myself.
MAGESTIC If those numbers are engraved those are factory marks and are the 100% guarantee if u have a fake or real. Engraved numbers means real 100%
I bought a copy of doom 2 on ebay and it's been 2 weeks, it hasn't gotten here yet and it was 15 bucks so uh it's most likely a bootleg
What about Superstar Saga?
I really like your accent
No more manufacture original GameBoy/Color/Advance Cartridge so why some people looking original cartridge? the only available on this day is fake or made in china
Not even remotely true. Second hand cartridges don't stop existing just because the carts are out of print.
Yeah but they all have worn out pins and labels. I have no problem with playing fake GBA games nowadays.
Danny C. Nah man I collect GBA games, to this day there are games that have never even been opened brotha!
PCBs are very resilient, especially original ones. Used Game Boy games work absolutely fine today, 30+ years later. Same goes for even older systems.
Fakes are a novelty and nothing more, no serious collector (of ANYTHING, really, not just game carts) would want fakes in their collection. If you don't have a problem with them - why not skip the novelty and inconvenience of carts, get an EZ-FLASH IV and load it up with a bunch of ROMs? That way you're at least not supporting chinese pirates/bootleggers in the process.
Wata bout the multi games 40 in 1 like that
Those are definitely fake.
HAHAHA Right so my GBA Rhythm Heaven’s data corrupted the day after I completed it. I go onto this video to see if it is a fake. I look for cartridge colour, Rhythm Heaven has about a million different colours so I wasn’t sure. I check for the number indents, can’t find them... Hmm... I checked the circuit board and it’s all legit looking until I look at the Nintendo Logo. It doesn’t say Nintendo... IT SAYS NIHLEHDO!!! Looks like I’ll need to buy a new Rhythm Heaven cartridge :|
Out of my 15 gba games, 1 of them were fake... Lego Star Wars :(
I suspect most people will have a few fakes in their collection. I don't think any of us knew how common they were at the time.
Thank you for this info. I’ve been trying to collect retro video game system. I already have a PlayStation 2 with numerous ps1 games. And started collecting Nintendo systems as well. I have a venasaur gameboy advance coming special edition. And ended up finding an authentic Japanese version of Pokémon crystal still in the box. But this is good to know because I see fake games al lathe time and refuse to buy them. 😂😂
You're welcome.
It's a major problem. There's a ton of fakes out there.
@@KevinMuldoon yeah and in my city not a lot of places have old retro games. If they do they’re taken off the shelves in a matter of hours. I’ve bought a couple Japanese versions of certain games like as I said crystal and I have leaf green coming too. Which I don’t personally mind since I know some Japanese but not a ton. It’s rare for Japanese versions of the game to be reproductions because they’re less valuable since they have a limited audience. Most countries can speak English that what makes them valuable. But yes it’s a major problem and really appreciate the info.
And also you do not get the ERSB rating in your area but the ERSB thing is also fake it looks too thin
Thanks mate. So it turns out I’ve only got one real game
Oh that's a killer. Did you buy from ebay?
Kevin Muldoon Na I got them from a local market
Ahh that's frustrating. They might have bought them from China.
Kevin Muldoon true they probably did I traded some with a guy in year 9 (I’m in year 11) he’s gonna bring them tomorrow tho check
idk if mine Zelda Minish Cap is fake or not.
If it's fake it looks pretty real. With the "GAME BOY ADVANCE" no misspell. BUT IT DOESNT work!
Though the code thing looks real, AGB-BZME-USA with a white yellowish design with the "Official Nintendo" E for everyone.
And no capital...ETC. I really wanna know if mine's fake :(
www.reddit.com/r/zelda/comments/1osby4/spot_the_fake_minish_cap_games/
Maybe this can help you!
@@Djordjevicc Its good, i found out it was fake
@@wc.1212 damn thats too bad. I also got scammed once so I know how you feel lol
Thanks
Thanks for this video I got a fake one
great video
Thank you :)
Irish ?
Scottish
I can't believe you missed the mark with such an obvious accent xD
Pokemon emerald is real
The esrb logo is wrong because it's thinner and more slanted