Update: those 2 can probably be bypassed. IC3 is 2.5v detection, if the battery went low it would turn off the output of IC3 and pull pin 46 of the NEC chip low, which could be used to signal weak or dead battery warning. Tie pin 46 to vcc to lock it up and leave IC3 out.
TR1 stands between pin 60 of NEC chip to /CE of SRAM. The base of the transistor is connected to IC4. My guess is if the volt goes below 3.9v (such as when system is OFF), it cuts off transistor and with a resistor to battery's +, this holds /CE line high and prevents SRAM from becoming active. We can probably bypass this and connect 60 directly to /CE of SRAM. When IC4 is "on" and TR3 is "running", the NEC chip can control /CE line to enable or disable the SRAM chip.
One more pin of NEC chip connects through a resistor to cathode of LED, anode is connected to vcc. We can also skip this and reduce a whopping 20mA from TE's total consumption.
All that's left is to find all the important spots (address, data, /rst, etc) inside TE and see if I can get all of them to match up with the ext connector that is used by the battery unit.
If this can work, it'd mean I can play Neutopia and not be shafted by tiny letters in password screen.