"How to spot fake Pokemon Games"

So I made it to an adventure for myself to buy some legit pokemon games. Adventure because it is really damn frustrating to get legit games on second hand shops/online. As I collected a little bit of knowledge during my adventure I wanted to share it with anybody who wants to buy some pkmn games. I only will describe generations I bought by myself.Gen 3 Leafgreen/Firered BUYING STRATEGY Honestly those are the most difficult to find out if fake or not. Best way to make sure you buy legit ones is to ask if the seller can open up the cartridge. Many refuse because they say they don‘t have the proper tool for it. Just tell them to do it with a knive. If they still can‘t/won‘t send you pics of the opened game I would recommend not to buy it. However if you still wanna try your luck and the seller won‘t provide pics from opend up game AT LEAST request a pic from the backside of the game if not provided already.WHAT TO LOOK AT FRONT: Honestly you can‘t spot wheter it is legit or not from the colour. Many people try to give tips on how to tell if it‘s fake when it‘s more red, seetheough etc. That is all bull. And forget the sticker too. Those games are so well faked you won‘t see any difference to legit ones. So frontside colour and sticker are all a bust for spotting fakes on firered/leafgreenBACKSIDE Here it gets interesting. Fake ones have spots all over the circuit board (https://ift.tt/2zCDcz9 ) Also you can tell easily if it is legit when there is that golden spot on the left side of the chip that is formed rectangular and itself consists of four rectangular pieces (sorry I don‘t know the technical term for that thing) You can see that on emerald/saphire/ruby cartridges too.INSIDE As I already wrote that is definitley the easiest way to tell if it is fake. There mustn‘t be a battery in it and on the circuit board are always two chips and nothing else (https://ift.tt/2Pg7MDq That‘s a very unsure methode bc you are dependend of the seller to tell you the truth but if the game says „The save file will be loaded...“ after the „press start“ screen it is 100% fake.Gen 3 Emerald BUYING STRATEGY Strategy is pretty much the same: get pics from opened up game or at least front+backside. But in general fake emerald cartridges are a little bit easier to spotFRONT That is the only game where you can look on the sticker. If you see those sparcling crystals (sometimes if the pic is taken with flash you can see the reflections on the foto itself) it is relatively sure a legit game. Most fake copies have a really bad faked sticker on it. (Wrong colour, no sparkling etc.) Next thing to look at is if you can see the battery on top right corner behind the sticker.If you see little bit of the battery and no huge chip there it‘s a sign that it is legit. If there is no battery it‘s possible that it was removed so it still could be original. But if you see a chip bigger than 5mm it‘s definitley fake. Most fake ones have a wrong chip alignement on the circuit board what you can see because the cardridge is always transperent.And last thing look on the very left side. If you can see a chip right alsode the sticker it also is 100% fake. Left side MUSTN‘T be a chip visible. Most copies make that fault so for me it‘s the savest sign to spot a fake copy.BACKSIDE Same here like it was with firered/leafgreen: Spots all over the board=fake Top left rectangular spot=legit copyINSIDE Rule Nr. 1: battery should be there Also there is that typical chip alignement that you can see on the pics provided in the link above. If there is some paper with chinese writing on a chip it‘s 100% fake.Gen 4 Heartgold/Soulsilver DS games in general are extremely difficult to differ between fake and legit. Ifound out that the ONLY two reliable things on those games are 1. Colour of cartridge and 2. CodeCOLOR The colour MUST be a dark black and if you hold it into light it turns reddish and you can see trough. The reason for that is it can work with pokewalker. Sor rule Nr. 1 IF IT IS GREY IT‘S FAKE!CODE A little bite less reliable than the colour is the code. If the code on tje front says „NTR - IPGP - EUR“ then on the backside the first letterst must write IPGP. And on the circuit board there mustn‘t be written „Nintendo“ on it. I found out for my copies when there is written „IRC“ they all were legit. But all in all keep in mind that I think the code is very region dependent so as I already said Rule Nr. 1 look if it is black and then look at the code if it matches too.Gen 4 Platinum I found this one the hardest I have to say. The cardridge is grey but that doesn‘t help. Honestly I haven‘t found a good way to say for high percentage if the game is legit. The only way here is to look at the code againSo that was it I hope I could help a little bit when you are trying to find legit pkmn games and if I continue my hunt with more games I‘ll keep you updated(Sorry the editing is trash but somehow it bugs with the numeration via /r/pokemon https://ift.tt/2PeS6R8