Can You Trade With FAKE Pokémon Games? 

Thank you guys for the support! I'm aware now that the GBA link cable isn't compatible with GB games and may test again in the future!

If you're using the same GBA link cable with the GB games then they wont work properly. The cables are wired differently and the GB games expect the proper GB cables to make the connection.

Traded from an authentic sapphire and leafgreen, to a FAKE platinum, then to authentic black and white, then X and Y. turns out it was a pretty well made bootleg, traded though all the generations. Didn't know it was fake till years later.

There was this pretty notorious fake called "Perla" for the GBA and I had it when I was like 11. It was supposed to be a modded emerald but there was no way to get past Petalburg and play any further and that bummed me out at first, but then I discovered that for some reason you could catch a level 2-3 Deoxys near Petalburg and I remember losing my mind cus it was my absolute favorite pokemon (still is) and I had no way to get one esp where I was. I then tried to see if I could transfer it to my actual copy of Ruby using the link-cable and IT ACTUALLY WORKED, and at the time, that alone to me made it worth shelling out most of my pocket money for lol. I was so happy. 😭

The Gen 1 and 2 games had issues trading between different language versions of the game due to data structures being slightly different. My guess is that this would come down to whatever language the pirated rom comes from (remember these can also be edited and translated) is from the same language as the authentic copy

I feel old that in 2023 you have to explain what a link cable is.

One possibility I can think of is that a GBA link cable does not work with original GB games; at least OEM ones. The link cable I got from Analogue has a switch to change between the two, but since you could trade between the GBA games and not the GB games its possible you have a cable that only works with GBA games

You took my Gary

You’re answering a question I’ve had for 15+ years. Thank you for your service.

It may be due to the fake Emerald being the real rom on a fake cartridge, but the Green cartridge is a hacked rom, as it is in english, it's either a Blue or Red pokemon game with the Green modded in or a Green with a translation patch.

I've always wanted someone to try to do this! Thank you kevdog!

If on emulators it's possible to do all that, and even trade with rom hacks, I suspect the same would happen with physical copies. Because what really matters is the rom itself, and the flash chip of the according size on the PCB. Gen I and II used 64K flash chips but Gen III used 128K. The other point really being to have official cables on real hardware, as GB consoles tend to be a little erratic. So if you got a good repro that has a flash chip of the correct size and a good battery, there shouldn't be any problems. Though I know really cheap gen III repros were circulating with 64K flash chips. They played just fine but at some point it just corrupted your save file because the save itself went out of memory bounds for double of the chip's size.

Hooking up the link cable and battling against friends in Megaman BN3 was my whole childhood.

what happens if you try to trade from a fan made game like chaos black or dark rising? really curious about the fan made pokemon too as to what the real game would recognize it as if it could connect

Idk if roms count as "fake games", but on my modded 3DS, I am able to trade pokemons from my Gen 4 pokemon roms like Pokemon Platinum and Heartgold/SoulSilver win my physical Pokemon Pearl game, and I think the reason why it works is because since I'm playing the rom on a Console from the DS/3DS family and not any other consoles, it detects the rom and a real gamesince it is using the DS system built in the 3DS

They aren’t fake. They are flashed roms on a cart. A fake game is more of a made up version like ash grey, orange version, liquid crystal version. Seeing if a flashed Rom works yes I’ve knew this since the black and white, heart gold and soul silver they all work with official to trade since it’s a copy of the exact game. Now your theory is if a fake like ash grey would trade with red,blue, yellow and green

There are a few things I figured out when i ended up with a fake sapphire version. As you showed you can trade with legit games. But something i found out out is you can’t transfer through pal park to D/P/P. So something i tested was trading to the legit copy and sending that pokemon all the way to current games which worked. One thing that didn’t work for transferring was some shiny gameshark mons that I managed to send from pearl to B/W. Those couldn’t be sent to pokemon bank so they are forever stuck in gen 5

I got a bootleg version of Fire Red back in the day to use for Pal Park in D/P and it would wipe all the data on the Fire Red cart whenever i used Pal Park. I was wondering what was up with it as it was pretty convincing but the big clue was a unfolded box and the manual was only a couple of pages long Perfectly playable outside of that, but yeah considering that was the reason why i got it lol

When i was a kid (during gen 3 games were out) i had a fake game i got from the flea market and got a level 3 deoxys, traded it to my emerald version, and flexed on everyone lol everyone wanted one so bad

I remember having a romhack game called frigo returns and that had a fake pokemon which I actually shiny hunted and traded to pokemon Ruby. Right after the fake game deleted its save file. I am probably the only person to of seen that thing shiny. It became articuno by the way

I remember doing this as a kid back in 2004! Made it easy to do new games on real copies with all 3 starters. It's also possible to trade between real games and romhack gba cartridges

It looks like you are trying to use the GBA Link Cable for GB games. You need to get a GB Link cable to get the trade function working since the GBA Link cable isn't backwards compatible.

As far as i know, as long as its a viable rom of the game on whatever cartridge, it'll work. Ive traded from injected roms on my 3ds to actual cartridge on my original ds and it worked perfectly, so no reason why the same or similar rom wouldn't work running off of a cartridge

Can also confirm that the DS pokemon games are able to trade just fine. You're even able to trade from most ROM hacks which is kinda weird lol.

I had a third party GBA link cable when I was younger and there was a slider on it that said GB on one end and GBA on the other. When using my GBC games (on GBASP) I had to push that slider to the GB section. Does yours have that maybe?

I've also had issues with gen 4 when when it comes to migrating from fakes.

Game boy games used different cables than the game boy advance did. So using a gba cable to link old game boy games won’t read. The cables for old game boy can still be plugged into a gba so thankfully you won’t need old game boys to do it

From my experience (at least with Gen 3 and 4 bootlegs), they have no trouble trading with other games. Only issues are with generation 3 bootlegs. They cannot connect with any Gamecube games, distribution events or migrate to generation 4. I cannot confirm if this also happens with generation 4 but i do know that fakes can transfer to generation 5.

known for years. the games didn't had the fake check back then at least try to trade a pokémon from the fake up to Home

I remember having a fake copy of Firered that i leant to a friend. I also traded him my charizard to train on his legit copy of leaf green. Long story short he traded the charizard to the fake copy which ended up corrupting its save and took my charizard with it. Still get salty every now and then but i guess it was my bad for owning a bootleg game lol.

Does the 369 in 1 cartridge have a running clock system for emerald so you can catch Pokémon at night and day and stuff?

the fact you can trade fake pokemon to real games and vice versa is a creepypasta waiting to happen.

Trading has always been an issue back when we used cables even between real games.

I have bootleg cartridges of soul silver and platinum and they work just fine. I've traded Pokemon back and forth from each on a new 3DS and DSi XL and DS lite. I have yet to test if migrating from the GBA games work.

I knew the answer coming in and still watched. Great video man

The only thing that I can think of is that technically, it’s only fake in the fact that the cartridge is self is not authentic because it’s using the same ROM for the game and that shouldn’t make a difference. It’s the same thing that Nintendo does when they have the Older, Pokémon games on the switch, and the comb populated some kind of trade system with it since link cables cannot be used on a switch. what I’m trying to say as long as you have the ROM of the game there shouldn’t be any issue trading between a real game and a “fake game”

Fun fact most fake pokemon green cartridges are just pokemon blue patched to say pokemon green. I've dumped a couple of these cartridges and even made patches for it.

I felt soooo old when you had to explain the cable 😂😅 time flies , pokemon 4ever

I had a fake platinum as my first Pokémon. My sister had a real pearl. Worked fine. Except if she left the trade or underground first, my game would crash

The trade function is a game mechanic, as long as it's a clean rom, it will work. I've done successful trades between emulators, between a flash cart running the rom and an actual cartridge and even between a modded 3DS running the game through TWM++ and another DS running an actual cartridge. I've also had successful trades between a romhack and a legit game so unless the bootleg somehow messed around with the game's code in some wierd way, you should have no issues with trading. (Unless it's between a Japanese and an English copy of the Gen 1 or 2 games, that will corrupt the saves, for some reason I don't fully understand)

I remember when I tried trading between a fake emerald and a real XD on the game cube, the XD wiped out the save data of the fake emerald. Back then, didnt know I had a fake emerald. Lost 40+ hours of game play like that. After that I traded with my real leafgreen just fine, so the link cable was ok.

Gba cables rarely worked for GB games, i thought the one i got from GAME was faulty but it only worked for GBA to GBA. The old ones that are kinda hdmi looking work between gb to gb console

Another issue might be region: pokemon green was origionaly a japanese version of the game, so even if it's translated into english my guess is it might only be able to trade with a japanese copy of red or green

I remember doing this 20 years ago just to complete my pokedex

not sure if it works like this for all fake gba games, but i have tried to use the pal park feature to transfer to genuine gen 4 games from a bootleg copy of firered and the gen 4 games do NOT recognize the fake firered. the copy i used was one of those worse bootlegs (that start up with "the save file is ok") and i have no idea if it works between a better bootleg, or how it works on flashcarts/multi-game carts. just something i thought was interesting

Speaking of fake games, my buddy saw Pokemon Clover in a Granny B's.... I know it's a free download, but like, I had to just for the novelty. The fact someone went through the effort of putting it into an actual cartridge with a custom sticker that would look official to anyone who didn't know better. Wild. It works too is the funny part. Since it uses Firered as a base, I am wondering what would happen if I tried... Probably wouldn't work or cause a game crash/data corruption, assuming they could connect.

Idk why i got sm nostalgia from the trade animations broooo i miss nintendo wfc

Can you see if the 369-in-one game supports transferring to the gen 4 games with pal park? I remember my first Pokemon game was Emerald, and I finished it... but it turned out it was a bootleg, and the save data wiped itself when I tried to transfer my Pokemon into Pearl.

when i was a kid i got some fake games in turkey, in one there was a bush at spawn where i could find lvl 2 deoxys's so i farmed them and traded to emerald/leafgreen it was dope

I'm trying to figure out if it's possible to transfer gba bootleg cartridges pokémon into Gen IV through dual slot, but I'm too lazy to progress my platinum save

I do not know. It might have have a virus that corrupted your game. Your fake trade pokemon might carrying a pokerus that might caused your game crashed or deleting your save file permanently and it would have a bad egg

It has nothing to do with the cart being fake. The reason this does not work is because you are trying to use a GameBoy Advance link cable for a GameBoy/GameBoy Color game. The GameBoy Pocket/Color Link Cable will look the same, but it is NOT compatible due to differences in how the cable is wired. The protocol is NOT the same. That said, even if you were to use a proper link cable, it is likely yuou would get garbled glitch Pokemon in gen 1 trading from an English to Japanese game. Keep in mind, Pokemon Green is a fan translation, not a rom hack. The way the game compresses data is likely different from how the English Red/Blue/Yellow work. This means that the results you would get have nothing to do with the authenticity of the cart, but simply would be the same with an authentic Japanese Pocket Monsters Green as well.

Trading works with real or fake copies. The only things you can’t do with fake copies is migrate or trade from colosseum, XD, and stadium.

I kinda did that with my fake sapphire version to my original emerald version with my Kyogre. I love this mon, i have it right know in pokemon scarlet, more than 20 years!

I have this same copy of green. The first trade I tried, it lost the pokemon traded over from blue but blue received the pokemon from green. The second trade worked.

I bought a reproduction cartridge of emerald and tried to action replay the event tickets for mew and deoxys. But it didn't work. Or I messed up getting the codes in. Can you try that?

I was able to trade from physical copy of an improvement hack known as pokemon ultra violet is able to trade with the other GBA pokemon games. However, when I tried with GameCube it wouldn’t work. The exception being you have to complete storyline pre and post game (just like In OG fire red) and make sure the pokemon is caught in an area in the normal game’s code.

Before watching, I remember being able to trade between Pokémon Topaz and Pokémon Orange

Nice vid, well done but still has a comfy vibe

Where did you buy this multi cartridge?? Does real time clock works?

Definitely need a link to that all in one game

It makes sense the fakes can trade with the original. Game Freak probably did not have the chip space to put in any anti-piracy software.

This guy just took someone's Gary

fake copies of gen 5 work too. they can even get mystery gifts

Japanese Pokemon red and green are also gray carts. That’s a great giveaway for anyone who is looking for the Japanese games

You can trade with a fake one, using a Game Boy Color cable - even a fake one....

Is it possible to link fake Gen 3 games to Pokemon Colosseum/XD Gale of Darkness, fake Gen 4 games to Pokemon Battle Revolution, and fake Gen 1/2 games to Pokemon Stadium 1 & 2?

That pokemon green copy is empty like my brain

Infact on android, you can download a certain emulator (*I'll edit in a bit to what name) and u can open two files of Pokemon at once, and trade emulator to emulator on ur android.

Something I've been wondering is can the fake copy transfer up to a legit copy of gen 4?

I have a physical cartridge of Volt White 2 Redux and I have traded Pokemon from my Black 2 over to that game and vice versa, and I can confirm it works with those games. But tbh I think it comes down to the quality of the ROM present in the hack games if anything. I used to own a lot of bootlegged GBA games as a kid and all of the Pokemon ones erased eventually just on their own, they also refused to migrate from gen 3 to 4. Now games where new Pokemon are added I'm sure trading won't work. I have a physical copy of Clover I could try, but I imagine that game will just give me a bad egg, so I'm not really sure if I wanna try that just yet. Would be interesting to maybe test out though, maybe. So, yeah, sometimes trading between fake to real to works, sometimes it doesn't. There's a surprising comparison to be made with the quality of bootlegged games.

You didn't fully confirm everything. Save the game on both and restart. When I did this, the rom version didn't recognize the pokemon from the legit version and gave back the OG mon that was traded

Fun fact to everyone: If you can download a 3DS rom hack onto your 3DS/2DS, they are completely compatible with Pokémon Bank!

I only recently did a trade between my real copy of fire red and the rom of ultra violent on a cartridge and it worked perfectly

What would happen if you tried to trade between a real game and a romhack?

I was able to transfer my pokémon from a fake platinum cartridge onto pokemon battle revolution for the wii

I’ve traded between my counterfeit gen 3 games to my real gen 3 games, same for gen 4. I bought them on eBay when I was like 13 so circa 2014?

If the fake copy still works as a normal copy then is there any difference besides not being made by gamefreak?

I have been wanting to know this for so long

I’ve been trading between real leafgreen and a fake firered, only way I could tell it’s fake is when it loads it says “the save file is ok”. Every other time I trade from the fake to authentic, the Pokémon and items from the fake simply get copied, and the authentic Pokémon disappear. I ended up with a bunch of moon stones and extra tms 😂. The trade appears successful, but when you restart the game, it might not be lol.

Can you do the 360 in one connect to gc? Like load colliseum then go to the link battle then when it asks for game load the sapphire game in the 360 in one

I bought an unauthentic Ruby version and attempted to trade a pokemon to my authentic Emerald. The trade was unsuccessful and the fake Ruby deleted my save file.

Never ran into a problem.

If gen 4 works could I transfer my Pokémon from my not authentic platinum through BW then all the way to the switch?

The real question is can you bring the traded Pokémon to Gen 9?

Gen1 works too as long as they’re the same region games.

I did have a fake copy of Platinum and it worked on sending pokemon to authentic pokemon white

now here's the challenge, can you transfer a pokemon from the fake emerald all the way into pokemon bank and from there home? (had a shaymin from one of those emulator cardridges at one point, got shaymin on a diamond, sent it to my platinum, it went to B2 no problem, but Bank recognized it immediatly as a problem so it's just eternally the last of my pokemon in unova hunting the last of N's pokemon. Can't find purloin for the life of me)

Now the question is, can you play pokemon revolution on the wii with a fake 4th gen game?

I was given fake gen 3 games during my childhood, they always worked perfectly fine up until I attempted to use the Pal Park to bring the Pokemon up to gen 4. Since I was a dumb child I didn't actually click onto the fact that they were fake and that it was Pal Park that was messing them up until a few years later when I was playing with the last fake one that worked- Fire Red and realised that, oh hey, these games that my mum got off Ebay for like £5 might not be legit. I didn't have a second GBA or a cable or anyone else who played gen 3 so I guess it'll be a mystery forever more if the fakes would've similarly corrupted had I attempted to trade.

i remember buying my first link cable when i was in middle school and was able to trade my friends to get alakazam and gengar (24 now)

I mean, if it's running an unmodified ROM idk why it wouldn't work

Can you make a vid on if you can trade between a rom-hack cartridge and a real cartridge? I've seen people do that successfully for official pokemon but I haven't seen someone try with the rom-hacked fan-pokemon to a real game.

It does work you just need a better cable. That's actually how I was able to collect All my pokemon

I managed to with a fake Ruby cart to a legit XD Gale of Darkness.

I know this is probably not having to do with the video, but I’ve hacked pokemon Emerald onto my 3DS, is there any way for me to transfer my pokemon from there or are they stuck?

Fake consoles can trade if CPU timer works correctly.

Yeah I remember owning that 100 games in 1 rom there was pokemon red and blue into so many year it was the nostalgia 😙

wait, is that copy of pokemon sapphire even a real copy? do you know for sure cus you owned it since it came out or something? i saw a few videos on youtube about real and fake copies of the gen 3 games and apparently they have some kind of stamp to the right of the pokemon logo with numbers on it and i didnt see that so i wanted to ask.

I traded with a bootleg all in one GBC Pokémon Red to my legit pokemon yellow and blue