I recently bought a copy of Pokémon emerald from online to use to transfer Pokémon to my childhood copy of Diamond so I could complete the national dex (for old times sake). Pic related, it’s of my copy. It may be a bootleg, but I can’t tell.

>start new game in emerald
>catch 7 Pokémon, first 6 random encounters plus starter
>put six in PC and one in my party
>save game
>turn off DS
>put in diamond cartridge and attempt to migrate
>option to migrate doesn’t appear on menu

Now, I’m no stranger to bootleg GBA Pokémon games, but I honestly can’t tell if this is one. I got a bootleg of sapphire many years ago and it’s definitely a bootleg. A weird message appears when you boot up the game and your save data deletes whenever you load up a DS game in the top cartridge slot. Neither of those things happen with this copy of emerald.

So am I stuck with another bootleg? Do I need to progress more in Emerald? Should I try waiting a day so times sync on my copies? I don’t know what to do here.