I'm a little astonished at how well my old handheld Nintendo systems have held up, despite not having put much effort into preserving them. Aside from a few screen scratches, both my Game Boys are near immaculate. My classic fat DS is more obviously well-loved, with paint worn off on the corners and a very scratched-up bottom screen (mainly from agressive Meteos sessions). But I can repaint it if I want, and since I'll probably only be playing GBA games on it, I don't mind the screen damage.
Well, it turns out that my GBC isn't usable at the moment. 🫤 The power light flickers but doesn't turn on, so I'm gonna need to get my hands on a tri-wing screwdriver and open it up to clean it as a next step.
The GBA wasn't turning on at all at first, but a good cleaning of the battery contacts took care of that. It's having some audio issues (a bit of intermittent crackling even when the volume is at 0%) but it works well enough for now.