Nearly every cartridge-based system up to the 3DS saves to the cartridge. But many older cartridge games from that era (SNES, GBC, sometimes GBA) used volatile SRAM that needs to be constantly powered with an internal battery. When the battery dies, the save is wiped and it can no longer hold a save, though you can always open the cart up and replace the battery.
And what people will do for a save game they really care about (like childhood Pokémon carts) is back up the save onto PC, replace the battery in the cart, then put the save back onto the cart. Very clever. I want to get one of the readers that lets you back up carts, they’re not that expensive
Nearly every cartridge-based system up to the 3DS saves to the cartridge. But many older cartridge games from that era (SNES, GBC, sometimes GBA) used volatile SRAM that needs to be constantly powered with an internal battery. When the battery dies, the save is wiped and it can no longer hold a save, though you can always open the cart up and replace the battery.
And what people will do for a save game they really care about (like childhood Pokémon carts) is back up the save onto PC, replace the battery in the cart, then put the save back onto the cart. Very clever. I want to get one of the readers that lets you back up carts, they’re not that expensive
Oh, cool, TIL. Even though I had a lot of handhelds, I never actually noticed that.