My Gameboy Pocket D-Pad needs fixed. Have to press really hard. Any Ideas?

[greedostick]

Just what the title says. Are their any tricks to make a D-Pad be more responsive? I have to press really hard every direction except right.

[Polygon]

Could be as easy as taking it apart and cleaning the rubber pad and contact on the PCB. That's where I'd start.

[greedostick]

I did that last night. It was really dirty. And there was all this dark honey colored stuff on the PCB which I cleaned off. It is working much better now. But the left and up is still.kinda hard to press. Everything's clean now, and the board looks good. So I'm unsure what the issue is. It may just be this pokemon gold game. I'm ordering Tetris to see how that works.

[ApolloBoy]

It may just be this pokemon gold game.
I highly doubt it. One thing you can try is sticking little squares of copper tape on the button contacts (not on the PCB!), that should improve the responsiveness of the buttons.