So... I wanted to check something on my Ruby cartridge. The game was working just fine last time, which was about a month ago.
The internal battery has run dry. The game can be played. However, clock-based events will no longer occur.
...The hell?! It was working fine, I swear it was! And it's not even 10 years since I got it! JUST. HOW. Oh wait, what about Yellow and Crystal? If this thing's battery is dead, those two must be gone by now too. Or should they?
Yellow's battery is fine. It still loads the last file I had fine. Crystal? It asks to set the time up, but otherwise the file loads fine, complete with me having a red sprite for the female character due to trying a glitch for that. But if the file's still in it, and IIRC, unlike Ruby the save file depends on the battery too, so that means it hasn't run dry.
Then, how in the world do these two still work, while Ruby's only powers up the clock and has less YEARS since buying it?! HOW?! :V
Seems like I'll have to practice my soldering. But I'm afraid of killing the cartridge if I replace the battery myself.