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Best/worst experiences with used games.

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magibas

Drragon Trainer
Hi, I really couldn't find this topic anywhere else and I think it's an interesting one so here it is. A place to discuss any and all funny/bad/awesome/interesting experiences you've had when buying a used pokemon game.

I hope this is in the right place and if it isn't well I'd appreciate someone's help to relocate it. If the thread must be closed then so be it, I just hope someone opens up a good thread of similar topic in the appropriate place.

I'll start off with my most recent used game experience:
I am an American pokemon player from good old Austin, TX and I imported a pokemon white from Japan. "Why?" you ask? To use the Masuda method of course. (I could trade for a japanese pokemon from the GTS, but my dorm's wifi does not like my 3DS XL. I very recently figured out how to connect it and it's still pretty sketchy) Anyways, it took about a month for the game to ship from Japan and once it did I was so excited. This is where story time begins -.-
I then found that Japanese games only work on a fat DS or DS lite, so I had to ask around for one. Luckily one of my close friends had one to spare so I borrowed it. With no charger. I ordered one off amazon and two days later I had a working fat DS with Japanese pokemon white.
I start up the game, excited to finally get all of White's exclusive legendary pokemon onto my Black version and that sweet baby making machine: Japanese Ditto. BUT. Instead of being blank, there was already a save file of a female player... I look at her pokedex entries an it was at 504.
Woah.
I open up her save file and in her boxes I find a box called "Single" with several level 100s trained with great movesets, a box called "doubles" with more competitive pokemon. a box with EVERY legendary except Deoxys and Victini, and a box with a few shiny pokemon. Including a shiny Mew. The rest of her boxes had many pokemon from past generations, some just for dex completion, some were actually trained and a whole box of Dittos.
I hit the jackpot!
It took me two days of nonstop trading over infrared to get everything in my Black boxes.
Now I am one happy trainer :)
still looking for Deoxys and Victini though.
 

remybutton

Active Member
I bought a used Silver from a Gamestop before. When I plopped it in my Gameboy, it worked like any normal version. So I named my character, picked my starter, and beat Falkner before stopping for the day.

When I turned it back on the next day, there was no save file! So I thought to myself "Maybe I just forgot to save the day before." But it was no biggie, I didn't mind doing everything over again. When I beat Falkner for the second time, I made sure I saved 3-5 times for extra measure and turned it off. As an experiment, I turned it back on to see if my save was still there, and it wasn't.

After experimenting multiple times like that, I googled up the problem and realized the eternal battery was dead. There is some way to fix it, but it involves opening the cartridge and I'm afraid I'll make it worse. So I just returned the copy at the end.
 

mjunior3

Link Jokers!
my pokemon gold did the same thing. i stopped playing for about a month, then went back and the file was gone. it had happened before, so i started over, but the next day, it was gone again! hasn't worked since
 

striker101

New Member
I bought a used pokemon pearl that the only pokemon on there was only chimchar and i said FFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
 

*~Silver*~

Well-Known Member
I must be really lucky with used games or something... xD

The worst thing that's ever happened to me with a used game is with Soul Silver and the jerks at the store wouldn't even give me a case. I've still got the game, but I have to be super careful with the card because I don't even have extra cases.
 
I'm pretty sure my Blue version has been tampered with, since sometimes I turn on the game, but the "Nintendo" written below the Game Boy logo is covered with a black bar, and it doesn't let me move forward, so I have to keep resetting till it lets me continue.

However, it works fine once I get it to turn on.
 

Keera

Eeveelution Fanatic
I'm pretty sure my Blue version has been tampered with, since sometimes I turn on the game, but the "Nintendo" written below the Game Boy logo is covered with a black bar, and it doesn't let me move forward, so I have to keep resetting till it lets me continue.

However, it works fine once I get it to turn on.

That happens to games sometimes, but all the game needs (in my experiences) is to be taken out and blown in. It normally works perfectly fine after that~
That generally happens like if I haven't played a game in a long time.
 

TheEliteEmpoleon

Well-Known Member
Oh boy, here comes a good memory...
Back when me and my neighbor were younger, he got a used diamond game that was hacked. It had a TM that raised a pokémon's level or something like that. So basically we could et all our pokémon to level 100 in a matter of minutes. Of course back then I didn't have any policies regarding hacks or cheats...
 

tcg

私は日本語が話せない
I bought a used copy of black 2 from gamestop that had a huge pokedex, Like 500 something and all that was in the boxes were filled with herdiers and eggs -_-
 
When I was 4 or 5 years old I played Pokemon Yellow and when Each time I saved my file it would be deleted but since I was a little kid I didn't care or understand this so I just kept playing over and over ;^; I was so dumb..>.> I never got farther than Brock's gym >^>
 

~Azurill~

Active Member
LOL ruby was my first game and after playing it for a lot of time I caught an orange Clamperl. Never knew what it was but I was affraid it was some kind of bug or something like that so I erased my file.

5 years later (with Diamond/Pearl then :b) I signed up in a Pokémon forum and discovered what shinies were. Yea... I got a little bit mad >->
 
My friend accidentally bought a bootlegged Korean Platinum. Needless to say, it didn't work, it crashed every couple of minutes, and nobody knew what they were saying.

Another friend of mine bought a gray cartridged Firered. He said that the game had no text, and stuff would just disappear with no rhyme or reason. He didn't even get a Pokemon.
 

The Benmeister

Master of Magnet
I bought a used Diamond, and it had on it insane things like a shiny Shaymin and Darkrai all caught in Master Balls. If someone's going to hack at least make it subtle.
 

Iristle

I make no sense
I bought a second hand Leaf Green off of Amazon, or eBay, either of the two. It turned out to be a bootleg, which I only figured out after trying to connect to Pal Park and found out it deleted the save. It did this every time I tried to Pal Park Pokémon over. Later I noticed various inaccuracies between the fake cart and what a real cart should look like, so I got it sent back and instead got another one, which thankfully turned out to be a legitimate cartridge.

All of my other games are store bought, though, probably from around the time. I'm careful with second hand games from now on, try not to buy it unless I can tell it's real, comes from a trustworthy source (CEX is pretty good for most stuff, I managed to get a gamecube memory card from there once) or if I can get it from a store.
 

songani

Star Trainer
there was nothing so special about it. the user just reset the game before selling it. It was a Pokemon Platinum version and I had it for almost a year but after a while, the game started acting up. When I put the game in the slot, it wouldn't show up so I had to take it out and in again. When i tap the game icon and turn it on, it showed me and error that its not set in right and blah blah. so yea....my platinum is sort of useless. :/
 

MuseHarmonia

~♥Raichu♥~
Worst thing that ever happened: The game never worked. Didn't load or anything. I think it was a Platinum. It just....was dead. :/
Best thing: I looked at the profile of the person before me that had the game before I did, I think it was Ruby, and they had shiny galour. xD
 

Meeker

It needs a fence.
Well, I once found a couple Pokemon one could only find through hacking, though they weren't theirs, they got them in trades and from friends judging by the OTs. I mean, how else could someone get a level 36 Arceus at Verity Lakefront? Just goes to show you...

Though, the worst experience I had was when I bought a game that didn't work, but I got a free replacement, so it's cool.
 
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Hunter Zolomon

Into the Shadows
Staff member
Moderator
Shockingly enough every used game I have ever bought has always worked for me. I remember when I bought Black Ops 1 for Ps3 on release night. Soon as I got home and played it the game was super buggy, and would freeze up, but for a game on release day those can be some pretty common problems.
 
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