Which EverDrive Should You Choose for Game Boy?

EverDrive GB v.1

EverDrive GB v.1 is the very first flash cartridge for Game Boy released by Krikzz.

This version was built according to the classic flash-cartridge principles of the early 2000s. The main difference was that the external reader used to rewrite memory was replaced with a memory card.

In other words, when you first launched the cartridge, the game had to be copied from the memory card to the NOR chip first, and only then could it be started. It is important to understand that erasing NOR memory and then writing a game to it could take up to a minute.

At the same time, NOR memory is non-volatile. That means that after turning off the console, the game stayed in the cartridge memory, and the next time you turned the console on, it could be started almost instantly. Until you got tired of it, anyway.

EverDrive GB v.1 also uses the classic SRAM-based save system. First, the game writes the save to the SRAM chip, and then the EverDrive menu transfers it to the memory card. The battery in EverDrive GB v.1 is there specifically to keep the data in SRAM.

However, the save system itself is implemented in a slightly strange way. In later flash cartridges, the save is usually stored in SRAM only until the next menu launch: you save in the game, turn off the console, turn it on again, and at that moment the cartridge moves the save to the memory card.

EverDrive GB v.1 works differently. Judging by the cartridge’s logic, the save remains in SRAM until the very last moment and is transferred to the memory card only when you write a new game to NOR memory. In my view, this is not the most reliable system, but this is how it works.

As for extra features, this cartridge supports Game Genie cheats and can restart the game with the A + B + Start + Select button combination. And it is specifically a restart of the current game, not a return to the menu.

So what was this cartridge? The first version of EverDrive GB was simply a solid flash cartridge: it supported most of the necessary mappers and allowed normal saves, even if the logic for transferring them to the memory card was odd.

If we break down EverDrive GB v.1 by specific criteria, the picture looks like this:

Fast loading — no.

Regular saves — yes, but with strange logic.

No need to return to the menu after saving — yes.

Save states — no.

Exit from game to menu — no.

RTC — no.

Cheats — yes.

Firmware updates — yes.

Is it available for sale? No. The cartridge is already hard to find even on second-hand marketplaces.

Price — around 4,000 rubles, if you manage to find a working unit at all. And that is more of a downside, because for that money it makes more sense to look at newer versions or successful clones.

Total for EverDrive GB v.1: 4 pros and 6 cons.

Now let us move on to the clones.

EverDrive clones

Once upon a time, Krikzz either produced these flash cartridges in China himself or gave someone a license to manufacture them. As usually happens, his product was quickly copied and mass-produced. But later on, Krikzz did not transfer his technologies to China anymore. So all Chinese EverDrive cartridges are, in essence, clones of EverDrive GB v.1, with all of its pros and cons.

Overall, I would even say that the EverDrive GB v.1 clones are better than the original in some ways. However, it is important to understand one thing: this is true only if they have the latest, fourth firmware version installed.

So what are the major differences between the firmware versions? I counted two such differences. In the first version, the A and B buttons are swapped, and the exit button does not return to the menu, but simply reboots the game. In the fourth version, everything works as it should: the A and B buttons match their functions, and the exit button really returns to the menu.

If we break down the EverDrive GB v.1 clones by specific criteria, the picture looks like this.

EverDrive GB Extreme

Fast loading — no.

Regular saves — yes, but with strange logic.

No need to return to the menu after saving — yes.

Save states — no.

Exit from game to menu — yes.

RTC — no.

Cheats — yes.

Firmware updates — no.

Is it available for sale? Yes. The cartridge can be bought on AliExpress without much trouble.

Price — around 3,000 rubles, which is also a downside.

Extra point — the cartridge uses FRAM instead of an SRAM chip. So it does not need a battery for saves.

Total for EverDrive GB Extreme: 6 pros and 5 cons.

EverDrive GB Pro

Fast loading — no.

Regular saves — yes, but with strange logic.

No need to return to the menu after saving — yes.

Save states — no.

Exit from game to menu — yes.

RTC — no.

Cheats — yes.

Firmware updates — no.

Is it available for sale? Yes. The cartridge can be bought on AliExpress without much trouble.

Price — around 1,000 rubles, which is a huge advantage.

Total for EverDrive GB Pro: 6 pros and 4 cons.

It should be noted that, in my opinion, both clones are still better than the original EverDrive GB v.1. They already have the latest firmware, and Krikzz is unlikely to update such an old cartridge. So the inability to update the firmware further is not really a full-fledged minus here, but rather a theoretical drawback. But exiting from the game to the menu is genuinely useful and makes the cartridge noticeably more convenient in everyday use.

EverDrive GB X3

In 2018, Krikzz updated his EverDrive GB and released the new EverDrive GB X3.

EverDrive GB X3 can no longer really be called a classic flash cartridge, because the way it launches games changed. Now the game is written not to NOR memory, which first has to be erased and then flashed again, but to RAM.

And this is a plus. Yes, every time you turn on the console, the game has to be loaded into the cartridge memory again, but it happens almost instantly. Compared with EverDrive GB v.1, where writing a game to NOR could take up to a minute, EverDrive GB X3 already feels like a much more modern device.

Perhaps the biggest innovation in this cartridge is related to the save system. The SRAM chip was completely removed from the cartridge.

Now the save is written next to the game in RAM and only then transferred to the memory card. And this transfer is arranged in an extremely strange way: for the save to be written to the memory card, you have to exit to the menu without turning off the console.

And to me, this is a very strange decision. Yes, it probably made the cartridge cheaper. But if you forget to exit to the menu at the end of a play session, the save will definitely be lost. I constantly forget to save even in normal circumstances and then have to replay certain sections, and here you also have to exit to the menu separately after every session. I am not sure this is something you can really get used to, especially considering that some games have saves and others do not.

What we have in practice:

Fast loading — yes.

Regular saves — yes, but with even stranger logic than the first version.

No need to return to the menu after saving — no.

Save states — no.

Exit from game to menu — yes.

RTC — no.

Cheats — yes.

Firmware updates — yes.

Is it available for sale? Yes and no. Getting this cartridge will be extremely difficult. It is not especially popular, so you almost never see it on second-hand marketplaces. A new one can be ordered only through a proxy and with “special” shipping, because importing cartridges from Europe is prohibited.

Price — around 5,000 rubles, and that is without shipping, which is already a huge downside.

Total for EverDrive GB X3: 5 pros and 4 cons.

The result may not seem that bad, but in my view, buying this cartridge for that kind of money simply makes no sense.

But EverDrive GB X3 was not the only new cartridge in the updated line. Together with it, Krikzz released two higher-end models — EverDrive GB X5 and EverDrive GB X7.

EverDrive GB X5

Compared with the X3, EverDrive GB X5 is already a full-fledged cartridge with all the necessary chips.

Even the developer himself wrote on his website that the X5 is the same X3, but without the need to write saves to the memory card manually.

And that is indeed the case. EverDrive GB X5 also loads games instantly, but it has an SRAM chip on the board. So now, even if you forget to exit to the menu after a play session, nothing terrible happens.

On the other hand, transferring the save to the memory card is still arranged in a rather strange way here — almost like in the first version. The save reaches the card either when a new game is written or when you exit from the game to the menu using the button on the cartridge.

So if you play the same game for a long time and the battery dies at some point, there is a chance you could lose the entire save. And this is not some purely hypothetical scenario. It is easy to imagine a situation where a year later you start using the cartridge again and only play Pokémon. Let us say that all week you simply turn the console on and off, and at some point the battery dies — and you completely lose the whole save.

What we have in practice:

Fast loading — yes.

Regular saves — yes, but with strange logic.

No need to return to the menu after saving — yes.

Save states — no.

Exit from game to menu — yes.

RTC — no.

Cheats — yes.

Firmware updates — yes.

Is it available for sale? Yes and no. Getting this cartridge will be extremely difficult. It is not especially popular, so you almost never see it on second-hand marketplaces. A new one can be ordered only through a proxy and with “special” shipping, because importing cartridges from Europe is prohibited.

Price — around 7,200 rubles, and that is without shipping, which is also a huge downside.

Total for EverDrive GB X5: 6 pros and 3 cons.

If not for the price and the difficulty of buying it, I could easily recommend this cartridge as a universal option — if we are talking specifically about the EverDrive GB line. As it stands, I think it is easier to buy a good clone and not worry about it.

EverDrive GB X7

EverDrive GB X7 is the latest and most advanced flash cartridge in the EverDrive GB line.

In terms of its basic design, this cartridge is very close to EverDrive GB X5. It has the same almost instant game loading from RAM and the same somewhat odd regular-save logic.

But EverDrive GB X7 also has two huge advantages: isolated real-time clock support and the ability to make save states almost anywhere in a game.

Krikzz also separately mentions the in-game menu, but treating it as a separate advantage is, at the very least, strange. In essence, the in-game menu is just the menu where you choose what exactly to do: create a save state or load one.

For a second, these changes may seem minor. But they are not. In practice, EverDrive GB X7 is the only flash cartridge for Game Boy that has save states. And while RTC support is not a rare feature on its own, this exact combination — save states, fast game loading, and support for all major mappers — is genuinely rare.

What we have in practice:

Fast loading — yes.

Regular saves — yes, but still with strange logic.

No need to return to the menu after saving — yes.

Save states — yes.

Exit from game to menu — yes.

RTC — yes.

Cheats — yes.

Firmware updates — yes.

Is it available for sale? Yes and no. Getting this cartridge will also be extremely difficult.

Price — around 15,000 rubles, and that is without shipping, which is a huge downside.

Total for EverDrive GB X7: 8 pros and 1 con.

In other words, this really is the best flash cartridge: both among EverDrive GB models and among Game Boy flash cartridges in general.

Epilogue

Honestly, this is probably the strangest flash-cartridge line I have ever seen.

EverDrive GB X3 is some kind of odd cut-down device that I would hesitate to call a full-fledged flash cartridge. It is simply worse than the old EverDrive GB v.1 and its clones.

EverDrive GB X5 does seem like a proper cartridge, but in terms of features it falls behind EZ-Flash Junior, which costs about half as much and is easier to buy. If not for the problems in the latest EZ-Flash Junior revisions, it feels like almost no one would pay attention to EverDrive GB X5.

EverDrive GB X7 is the undisputed world leader, but the price of 15,000 rubles without shipping literally kills the desire to buy this cartridge. Of course, there are true Game Boy fans in the world, and they are definitely ready to buy such a flash cartridge. But if we are talking about an ordinary person who just wants to spend a couple of evenings feeling nostalgic with Game Boy games, the best option looks like a cheap clone for a thousand rubles. From the point of view of the games themselves, you will get almost the same experience. The only real loss is that the real-time clock will not work in Pokémon.

If you want a short conclusion without all the nuance, it is fairly simple. For a collection and personal interest, you can look for an original EverDrive GB v.1. For the cheapest possible entry point, the clones work well, especially EverDrive GB Pro. If you want a more modern original cartridge, the X5 looks like the most reasonable option within the line. And if you need the absolute maximum set of features and the price does not scare you, then there is no real alternative: EverDrive GB X7 remains the best solution on the market.