Taken from bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/simplyaj.com/post/3mtq6av6yp226
Plus a sidenote from this person on DS games: https://bsky.app/profile/simplyaj.com/post/3mttai4jaz22j
Not sure on the technical details of exactly how long they last, but I've heard similar things several times before.
Always depressing to be reminded of this. Haven't had many fail, but honestly haven't tried a lot of my 3DS/Vita games in a while, so who knows.
If nothing else tho, it's nice to have an excuse to revisit some things. Once you boot it up, you might find yourself enjoying the reminiscing. :)
It's probably too late for me, but I don't think I care about saves older than 10 years. I can't even remember what I was doing in a game a week later, let alone a decade.
Does it permanently bork any new saves, though? I know my SNES Z:LttP had permanent save issues but I think that's a different story.
I think it's that the actual game itself gets corrupted. So it's not even that you can't save, it's that you can't play the game.
Like @ClipperDefiance@piefed.social pointed out in this thread tho, there may be ways to save a corrupted game.
You are correct.
Your LttP cart, assuming you already changed the battery, could have a bad SRAM chip. You can FRAM mod the cartridge to both save it and remove the requirement for a battery at the same time.
Also worth checking all the traces from the cart connector to the SRAM chip.
I'll keep that in mind. Quite a few of the games need a battery change but I think you're right about LttP. I emulate though so it's not as essential as it used to be, it'll be more relevant when I want to share the old ways with my kids when they're a little older.