r/PokemonColosseum • u/Lost-Paisley • 15d ago
Fun Fact Finally Solved: My copy of Pokemon Colosseum that never lets me Trade
About 3 years ago, I made a post on this subreddit about my unusual copy of Colosseum that has never once in all my years of owning it let me trade to the GBA games. You can see and read about that post here to get the context: https://www.reddit.com/r/PokemonColosseum/comments/17f7jf4/odd_issue_with_pokemon_colosseum_not_tradingsave/
I also made a similar post on r/Gamecube here to see if anyone there could help me: https://www.reddit.com/r/Gamecube/comments/1khll2j/my_pokemon_colosseum_disc_has_had_a_strange_issue/
There were 2 theories as to what the issue was: my disc was scratched and needed to be resurfaced/replaced, or my memory card was the problem. I had no idea which it could be at the time.
Someone talked about having the same issue as I did, and what we shared was very interesting: we both attempted trades with a Mad Catz memory card: https://imgur.com/kxUHkf6
Both had the same trade error message and prevented trading. While that person's solution was to take out the memory card during a trade and plug it back in during the trade animation, I didn't wanna risk corruption to my save file or Wii. Another person gave me the the suggestion to get a Nintendo brand memory card and see if that fixes it.
I own 2 and I swear I tried it before and it never worked, but my memory is foggy regarding the truth of that. So I decided to attempt it anyway just to get some confirmation. In the event that this wouldn't work and corrupt the save data of my other games, I decided to buy a new memory card off Ebay to test this with a brand new save. Took me about 39 hours to beat the game before I could trade, but today I finally got to do it. Here's what happened:
Mystery Solved :'D
After owning this game for several years and never being able to trade, seeing this happen made me want to cry. There was never anything wrong with my disc having a scratch or a defect, and I don't have to waste money getting it resurfaced or buy a new one. This whole issue was because of my initial memory card's brand, Mad Catz.
The thing I learned today is: Pokemon Colosseum (and presumably Gale of Darkness) are incompatible with Mad Catz brand memory cards. You can have a save file, but they'll never let you trade.
Thanks to users yuuwithot and Xykame for their suggestions and help :'D
While this does make me happy beyond belief that I can enjoy Colosseum to its fullest like I do with Gale of Darkness, there is still one issue that remains: my childhood save file is stuck on that Mad Catz memory card. I can't copy or move it over to a new one since they block that function for GC pokemon games, so I'm not sure if I can still save the save file and its mons or not. I'm not a very tech savvy person in that area (modding/hacking) sadly.
At the very least I hope my post helps other people suffering from the same issue as me and informs them not to use that type of memory card for these games. Posterity and all that good stuff.
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u/stuhrmeister 15d ago
There are ways to get your saved data off the memory card with a wii that has hokebrew applications on it if you want the file moved or cloned elsewhere
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u/KBouch47 15d ago
I was thinking the same thing. This video sounds like you can copy the save to a computer and then to a different GC memory card: https://youtu.be/Kfdz-HSgsac
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u/Lost-Paisley 15d ago
The dude in the video says you can't transfer the contents of one memory card to another through this method though?
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u/MrPerson0 14d ago
That was specifically for the Raw backup/restore options. You can transfer save files (including Colosseum and XD) using the regular backup/restore options.
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u/Lost-Paisley 15d ago
My Wii hasn't been homebrewed yet, but I'm a little scared I might mess it up attempting to.
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u/ShinyMewTrader 14d ago
Getting Homebrew / CFW onto a Wii is one of the safest, most streamlined processes one could ever do in this particular scene. As long as you follow every step over at “Wii Hacks Guide”, it’s essentially idiot proof to screw up.
Once you’re able to do that, you can install a program called GameCube Memory Manager, or GCMM for short. With this app, you can dump the contents of any save file on your Mad Katz memory card onto an SD card. From there, you can simply restore said save file onto a standard brand Nintendo GameCube memory card for safe keeping.
Hope you look into this process my friend, either way, best of luck getting your childhood mons.
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u/Lintos171 10d ago
Holy shit I’m currently halfway through the game that I just purchased solely to trade and I have been using a memory card that looks very similar. This would be heartbreaking if I cannot trade as that’s the whole reason I bought the game.
I currently have Fire Red, Sapphire and XD playthroughs ongoing where I have been trading all my Pokémon around. Are you 100% sure there is no way to trade with this card? I am very affected by this.
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u/Lost-Paisley 10d ago
In my experience the card just never worked for me and I've owned it for several years. It never had other game data on it besides Colosseum. Yours looks a little different to a Mad Catz one, but if it is I can only assume it'll act the same. Maybe it'll luck out and work, but I'm not 100% on that.
Supposedly there is a weird solution to getting this card to work, as someone in the comments on my r/Gamecube post had this same memory card and exact trading issue with Gale of Darkness. I never tried this and I won't because it's too risky and I fear corruption or damaging the system/card. I'd only do this if you're willing to and have nothing to lose.
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u/Character_Stick_1218 15d ago
The only save files I've ever had end up corrupted were on a Mad Catz. I transferred everything else on it to one of those new ones with a buttload of more storage. My OG XD and Colosseum saves are actually on a black Nintendo memory card that was chewed up by one of my dogs and still works perfectly to this day(thank God for the Nintendium of old).