With battery powered save data in all GBA games likely to die out within the next five to ten years***, it’s better time than any to start rescuing that progress and our memories with the games before it’s too late!
From what I hear, it’s possible to copy and extract saves using flash cartridges like an Everdrive, but I don’t have any to hand to test.
The Analogue Pocket recently received update 1.1, which lets you generate save states of your cartridges, storing them on a microSD card. Looking closer in the file manager and it seems to create both a .srm and a .sav file in a folder in root called “Memories”.
So there’s a few options then for getting the saves rescued, but one thing I was struggling with was finding a list of games which actually had battery powered SRAM saves…there was one blog post and while it did have a list, it isn’t comprehensive due to the effort involved in somehow obtaining all the carts and opening them up.
But I recently found a GBA game list/directory which does list the save data type for cartridges
GBA game list (free.fr)
Simply type a game name in and check the save type!
Battery powered?
- Sram_v11x
Other save types?
- Eeprom_v12x
- Sram_F_v10x (ferro-electric RAM which does not use a battery)
- Flash_v12x
More info about GBA save types: What's the deal with... GBA save files? - Screwtape's Notepad
***Based on some of my 1994 released Game Boy carts still holding their saves while some have died. Not sure whether the SRAM in a GBA cart is more power hungry though vs GB.