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If you cast your mind back a couple of years, you might recall a rather heartwarming story about a guy who stumbled across an “abandoned” copy of Nintendogs on a late-night train home and set out trying to find the lost pups’ owner. It was a sweet tale told in five parts by content creator and Nintendo Life reader Ben Riou-Pollard (@ben.m0v), and now, two years later, he’s only gone and done it again.
Fear not, this isn’t another story of dog abandonment, but it is one of abandoned Pokémon. You see, while hitting up a local car boot sale earlier this month, another lost game found its way into Ben’s path: a battered old copy of Pokémon Emerald. And so, naturally, we’re once again buying a ticket to another emotional rollercoaster of a TikTok series.
After asking around to see if he could track down the GBA game’s original owner (to no avail, obviously), Ben decided to take the cart home, clean it up, and see if he could work out who it belonged to by checking out the Trainer name and team info.
This, too, was unsuccessful, with Ben’s DS failing to recognise the cart despite a damn good scrubbing. So, what’s the logical next step? Throw the cart away? Return it to the car boot sale? Make a series of elaborate ‘Found’ posters as he previously did with Nintendogs?
Of course not! The logical next step is to fly out to Japan and get help from the Pokémon Center officials. Obviously.
And so, Ben did just that. We don’t want to spoil the end of the three-part drama in writing, but it’s safe to say that it all worked out… kinda. Parts one and two are available on Ben’s TikTok, and we have attached the third and final chapter below so you can check out how the ‘healing’ process went.
Before anyone rushes to the comments with it, yes, we’re pretty sure this is a fake cartridge, and yes, Ben knows this, too (as one glance at the replies on any of the series’ vids makes clear). But so what? The journey to reunite it with its rightful owner is just as honourable, and we’d be lying if we said that we didn’t watch the whole thing with a big old grin on our faces — let’s admit it, we’ve all picked up a bootleg GBA cart or two in our lifetimes.
But that’s not all the Nintendo content from Ben in recent months. While on the Pokémon-saving mission, he also stopped by the Kyoto Nintendo Store to pick up one of those swanky tote bags with a dedicated Game Boy pocket. And yes, there’s a TikTok for that purchase too. Okay, now we’re really envious.
Thank you, Ben, for the heads up about your latest lost game journey!
What do you make of this wild journey? Have you ever stumbled across a lost cart and managed to return it to its original owner? Let us know in the comments.