How To Use Codes on the VisualBoy Advance for Game Boy/GBC
This page will teach you how to setup codes for your Game Boy or GBC on the Visual Boy Advance Emulator. You may be thinking to yourself, "wait a second, isn't the VisualBoy Advance a GBA Emulator and not a GB Emulator?" and you'd be half right - it is a GBA Emulator but it comes with backwards compatibility for both GB and GBC games!
I chose the VisualBoy Advance Emulator for this console because it is a well trusted and well regarded Emulator in the community - unlike many of the GB Emulators out there. Many of the GB Emulators that you can download through app stores on Smart Phones (or even on the PC) aren't as old and trusted as the VisualBoy Advance, which is why I chose this one.
With that preface out of the way - let's jump into the guide on how to setup codes on this Emulator! For the purposes of this guide I will be using the game Final Fantasy Adventure on the Game Boy. The first thing you'll need to do is click on "Cheats" at the top of the Emulator and select "Cheat List" from the drop down. This will open up a box that looks like the screenshot below.
The next step is determining what sort of Cheat you want to use, all cheats on my website are sorted by either Game Genie or Gameshark - so if you're using a Cheat from my website this part should be easy. Cheats found on other websites may or may not be marked - so you'll have to look at the cheat format to determine what type of cheat it is.
All Game Genie codes will have a dash in them and all Gameshark Codes are going to be just the numbers with no dashes or special characters. I'll give you two examples below from my Final Fantasy Adventure Gameshark & Game Genie Codes Pages. The first code (Infinite HP) is a Gameshark Code and the second one (Infinite MP) is a Game Genie Code.
Infinite HP: 01FFB2D7
Infinite MP: 001-938-A28
If you get the code format wrong when trying to put it into the Emulator you'll get an error - so don't worry about messing this part up there is no real penalty for doing so. For the purposes of this guide I am going to use the Infinite HP code that's shown above. Before we do that, however, let's take a look at how much HP we have so we know when the code becomes active.
Before activating Infinite HP code
You can see that in the screenshot above I am sitting at 19 HP. Since the Infinite HP code is a Gameshark Code, we're going to select Gameshark Code in the "Cheat List" Menu and we're going to type the name of the code we want to use in the Description box and then copy and paste the code itself into the box below that marked Code.
Use my screenshot below if you're having any trouble with this part and figuring out what goes where.
Once you have everything done correctly click the OK button and it will submit your code and make it appear on the Cheat List. Next to the code you'll see a little check box that will let you know that the code is enabled - you can click this box to disable or enable any of the codes that you add to the Cheat List.
Every code you add will start off as automatically enabled so, assuming that's what you want, click OK in the bottom right of the Cheat List window and you'll be returned to the game. Now is the moment of truth - to see that your code actually works! Some games (like the one I am using as an example here) won't show you that the code as working immediately. Don't panic! Instead, fiddle with the game a bit to see if it actually works or not.
The code we chose was Infinite HP and it won't actually change our HP value until the game forces a check of the HP memory address - this happens once our HP changes either up or down. As you saw above we were sitting at 19 HP before we used the code, once I activated it I got into combat and let a monster hit me - after that I took the screenshot that's shown below.
Infinite HP is working!
As you can see in the screenshot above I am now sitting at 255 HP after letting the monster hit me. That's all there is to it! Quite easy to make these codes work, isn't it? Before I end this guide the last thing I would like to talk about is trouble shooting. I kind of talked about that above with letting the monster hit me to update my HP value but there are more tips I can give you too when it comes to trouble shooting.
I recommend you check out my No Codes Are Working For Me -- Why?!?! page for more information about trouble shooting codes and trying to get them to work with your Emulator.