Pokemon Sun Fan Reunited With Starter They Lost 6 Years Ago

I once had a Batman action figure from Batman: The Animated Series. It meant the world to me. Then I lost it playing in the yard one day and never saw it again. Every once in a while I would look under some bushes or dig up a spot here or there hoping to uncover my lost treasure, but to no avail. The same thing happened to a 3DS owner’s copy of Pokémon Sun, except they actually found it years later and somehow the cartridge still worked.

“I was cleaning outside and I found this, it’s my copy of Pokémon Sun from middle school,” user Lzzz4 recently shared on the Sun and Moon subreddit (via Automaton). “Last time saved in November 7th 2018, that’s probably around the time I lost it, that means it’s been outside for about 6 years and it still works.”

The grey 3DS cartridge was recovered from what looked like a pretty sandy patch of dirt, ripe with little specs of grit and grime to gum up the ridges around the metal connectors. A photo shared of the spot where it was found shows a perfect footprint of the plastic square and it’s not surprising the game went unnoticed for years. The entire label had decomposed.

Remarkably, it’s not just that the game still works after being in the dirt for six years, but that Lzzz4’s original save data remains intact. The team included Alolan Raichu, Gengar, Decidueye and Lapras. They couldn’t remember who the other two were in their starting six, but said they’d traded them away at some point. With 104 hours logged, the fan still ended up buying Pokémon Ultra Sun after the original copy was lost.

Now that their original team is back, thanks to the Poké Transporter everyone can safely be transferred to current versions of the game even though the 3DS eShop is long dead. But most players have simply been marveling that the small plastic square held up after all the wear and tear.

“This happened to me but with Animal Crossing: Wild World,” responded another player. “I must’ve accidentally dropped it outside and after getting a new game I finally found the old one (that went through everything from rain to snow storms!)” Lzzz4 wrote back, “These things are indestructible.”

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