MBC3 (Game Boy mapper)

MBC3 is a licensed Game Boy chip and Game Boy mapper by Nintendo, Sharp and ROHM, with memory bank controller support.

MBC3 is similar to the MBC1 mapper and MBC2 mapper and has functionality from the earlier numbered mappers (such as the bank switching) but with various enhancements; up to 64KiB RAM is now supported (Japanese Pokémon Crystal uses the full 64KiB RAM for data introduced from the Mobile System GB and Mobile Game Boy Adapter (international versions have 32KiB RAM) and may be considered as MBC30), and there is new functionality for a Real Time Clock (quartz oscillator and internal battery required), built into the MBC3 chip. The maximum ROM size is like MBC1 (maximum of 2MiB) but the design flaw that affected access to banks 0x20, 0x40 and 0x60 is accounted for now; so there are a maximum of 128 banks instead of 125.

MBC3 chip games include both Game Boy Color(+) only and Game Boy Color enhanced games.

Nintendo-published games with this mapper

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• Pokémon Red and Blue Versions (non-Japanese)
• Pokémon Gold and Silver Versions
• Pokémon Yellow (Japanese versions only, localisations use MBC5)
• Pokémon Crystal Version
• Tottoko Hamtaro: Tomodachi Daisakusen Dechu
• Trade & Battle: Card Hero
• Wario Land II (non-Game Boy Color enhanced version only, enhanced uses MBC5)

External links

• More technical information (software development and electrical engineering)