How and where to buy game cartridges for Game Boy Advance?

Original Cartridges

Although original cartridges are no longer produced, they can still be purchased on various auction sites (eBay) or platforms (Avito, VK groups, or sites like gbx.ru).

Pros:

1. It's an original cartridge, and its price will only increase over time;

2. These cartridges do not use batteries for saves and have non-volatile memory (saves will not be erased over time).

Cons:

1. They can only be bought second-hand, which carries certain risks related to fraud and the like;

2. The price for popular games is extremely high (for example, Pokemon Sapphire can cost 4-5 thousand rubles for a cartridge without packaging);

3. There are no games in Russian.

If you want to buy an original cartridge, be sure to read the article: «How to distinguish an original Game Boy Advance cartridge from a pirated one?»

Pirated Cartridges from Aliexpress

Our Chinese friends have started producing new cartridges with games for Game Boy Advance consoles.

The cartridges look very nice, and you have to look closely to distinguish them from the originals.

Pros:

1. These are well-made pirated cartridges;

2. They are new;

3. They are cheap;

4. They are great for those who want to hold a cartridge in their hands rather than download ROMs to a flash cartridge.

Cons:

1. They are still pirated (their value in the collector's world is close to zero);

2. They are not in Russian.

They include all the famous games (images are slightly blurred because the Chinese are protecting themselves from copyright infringement):

Pokemon Series

Zelda Series

Metroid Series

Mario Series

Final Fantasy Series

Mother Series

Doom Series

Flash Cartridges

Flash cartridges are cartridges with built-in memory (usually a memory card is inserted) on which you can write any game and play it on the original console (they do not work on clones).

Read more about flash cartridges in our FAQ: «Flash Cartridges».

Pros:

1. It's one cartridge that can hold an entire collection;

2. There are many Russian ROM images available online that can be written to such a cartridge;

3. It can run homebrew programs and even your own homemade programs.

Cons:

1. It's expensive (~3500 rubles);

2. You won't have physical copies of the games, which can also be enjoyable.

The best cartridge in terms of price/quality is the EZ Flash Omega.

Russian Pirated Cartridges

At one time, many counterfeit cartridges were produced in Russia. They were of quite low quality, but they had Russian translations. The main problem with these cartridges now is that their batteries, which were responsible for saving, have long since died, and they simply don't save anymore. Additionally, they are usually in very poor condition (they were bought for children) and only work after 5-10 attempts.

Pros:

1. They have Russian translations;

2. They are cheap.

Cons:

1. They are usually in terrible condition;

2. They usually don't save.

Epilogue

Which option to choose is, of course, up to you. But we have some thoughts.

If you are a fan of a specific game, it makes sense to buy an original cartridge. Yes, it might cost you 10 thousand rubles, but in the end, it's not such a huge amount, and if you change your mind, you can simply sell the cartridge.

If you don't know what you want, it makes sense to go for flash cartridges (to just try out games). If you want to "hold the game in your hands," then buy them on Aliexpress.

Russian pirated cartridges should only be bought as a last resort, and only if they look decent, which still doesn't guarantee that the battery hasn't died. So if you don't know foreign languages well, it's better to buy a flash cartridge and write Russian ROMs to it.