In old cartdridges games I actually put the hands on mew. But I really don't remember where that was thought the cartdridge technology was a pain in the ass the battery inside going dead and no chance to replace it without loosing the save data also if you knew when the batteries would go... I'm guessing it would be a nice temple experience.
I liked the cartdridges for the copy thing the game says don't turn off in exact one moment when it saves and you are naughty kid you turn off right that moment and woula you get the copy technology. How to duplicate pokemons ingame and items wich dey hold. It's like kids having problems being able to bring 6x100 level pokemon party to the battle and you were just collecting all the pokemons lvl 100 standard to put inside pc.
I'm guessing small mass of people were playing pokemon in my time and also they were not doing the things that I did I would need alot more people to play to few % talk about that things. It would be like talking about ivs when crystal cartdridge arrived. Like back in time I played pokemmo trade with people all having catastrophal ivs thought dey implemented ivs ingame making trading possible for competitve players LOL