Of these, Pokémon games use FLASH, while the vast majority of GBA flash carts use SRAM. Getting ever-so-slightly technical, there are three types of save chips used in commercial GBA titles: SRAM, FLASH, and EEPROM.

A commercial game like Pokémon Platinum can't read the save file from any kind of GBA flash cart. With that you'd be able to use genuine games in both slots, and the transfer would go swimmingly.

There is also the option of purchasing a genuine Pokémon GBA cart and using either a flash card or a linker (a device which allows your PC to interface with GBA cartridges) to transfer your save file to that. Even if you get someone else to do this step for you, you need a way to use the save file they send you, which means either an emulator on PC, or a flash card.ĮDIT: Duh, I suck, Heran Bago makes an excellent point. You need a patched ROM which knows where to look for it, and you can't patch the ROM on a retail card. Thus, a genuine Pokémon Platinum won't be able to find your save on a flash card. The reason you need a SLOT-1 card is that the way Pokémon GBA games are saved on flash cards is different to the way they're saved on the real thing. If you've already started playing Platinum, you could also back up your save with a flash card and send that to your buddy, that way you can resume right where you were with your GBA Pokémon. You can resume playing your GBA game with this save, and you could also play the NDS game on an emulator if you wanted, but most likely you'd rather play on your DS, and the only way to make use of the save file your buddy sent you is using a flash card (to either write the save to the original game, or just along with a ROM of the game). The GBA save will be less your Pokémon presumably (honestly I haven't played one of these things since Silver, so I don't know the exact process of trading between generations), while the NDS save will have them. They can transfer your Pokémon across, and then send you both (GBA and NDS) save files. They can write the (GBA) save file to their (SLOT-2) flash cart and run Pokémon Platinum (patched for SLOT-2 cart save reading assuming this patch exists, as it does for Diamond and Pearl) on their SLOT-1 card. If you don't have both of those, you could instead send your (GBA) save file to someone who does. Well basically, the process involves a SLOT-1 card and a SLOT-2 cart.

Gba pokemon games roms