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I replaced my Pokemon Silver/Cousins Gold a few weeks ago with a CR2032 (the original battery is a cr2032, basically the battery I replaced with is slightly thicker and last longer)
Surprisingly my Crystal still saves. My red, yellow, blue x 3, cousins red/yellow also all saves. The time keeper really does a number on the battery life for gold,silver and crystal.
Soldering is a good skill to have. The solder pads on the gameboy colors are easy to desolder (with solder wick or pump). Heck, you can even heat it up and just pull.
Also I back up my saves with this. I just need to get another card that ataches to this so I can back it up to my computer.