I'd say at this point the preservation of video games is strictly in the hands of pirates. I doubt Nintendo ever intends on making new ds or 3ds systems, so those games will all inevitably die if we don't catalog and preserve them ourselves. Maybe instead of pirate we should say conservationist.
@@harvivekdhindsa6809 i did the same, got botw for my switch (late in 2019). But it ran poorly on the switch and looked very grainy (cant stand 30fps), i have a pretty high end gaming pc so played it at 4k and 60fps on my pc. I got the game for 70bucks, in my home im free to enjoy it like i want.. that's how i see it.
you should NEVER give money to these types though. It is proven that detectives show these are big cartels, human trafficers, slave labor types. It is way more ethical to download the roms illegally for free. DO not fund evil!
I agree... So many games that don't work anymore because of dependencies to online services. At least these older consoles can have their entire catalogue backed up. Try doing that with the latest ps3 and xbox games..
The R4 card absolutely saved the day when my young son left his entire collection of ds games in a carry case at the dentist (never to be seen again!). There was no way we could afford to replace all those cartridges.
@Yugoslavia Radio idk if you’re gonna respond to this but the same thing happened to me and i went into the files and there was a file called DEMOX.(something) or something like that and i just deleted it and everything seemed to work fine again 🤷♂️
Saw the original video when it first came out and immediatelly went and got myself one of those cartridges, aswell as this one showed in this video. Both are still going strong!
I think there would be an argument against these.... IF Nintendo actually made these older games reasonably available. They could make a lot of money and avoid this issue by putting emulators on the switch and allowing people to buy the games again. If they made the entire DS library available at $10 per rom (like they did with GBC games on 3ds), I would drop a couple hundred right now. The convenience and the cost savings of this thing is amazing. The way I see it, if you do not make something available that is in demand, someone else will.
Having to buy the games again is still far from ideal. Plus, even if they did make the older games reasonably available, these are large corporations we're talking about, not something worthy of sympathy.
I completely agree, it does seem wild to me that roms are such a divisive issue when so many games are completely unable to be bought or played officially on current hardware. I do also agree with the other comments though on the issue of poor emulation. I personally will almost always prefer to play games on their original hardware to avoid those emulation issues, and especially with ds and 3ds they just don't translate well to other systems because of all the ds special features. Personally I think if it's out of print, it's made its sales, and roms are a preservation and accessibility issue. By their nature, physical copies will always become harder to find over time, as copies get lost or damaged or degrade - let alone if there weren't many copies printed to begin with! The money spent buying expensive second hand copies doesn't support the developers in any way, shape or form, and especially with pokemon there's a fair chance you might be buying a rom in a knock off shell anyway! Ultimately at this stage it's a game file loaded onto a chip, whether it was printed at Nintendo headquarters or not.
Well now that is really worth the money you can buy them all like that instead of paying the claiming prices for one of the older games just to be able to catch them and of them all in your name as the owner thank you for the info
I have more nostalgia for the flash card I owned than any of my legal games. I was just so happy I was able to convince my father to buy the thing off that somewhat shady site, and it opened up so many doors I hadn't even considered before owning it. Ports, homebrew, emulation, video and music playback (though video was too fiddly to do more than once), and cheating without that bulky gameshark thing. I think DS homebrew was my first ever experience with Minecraft in fact, the DScraft game, while extremely simple and unfinished, was enough to get my young creative juices flowing and experience a sliver of what I was missing out on. I think the first ever journal I kept was via some homebrew DS note taking homebrew. I... need a working DS and an R4 gold card now.
Is there a single game on this cart that can be legally purchased where even a single cent goes to the developer/publisher/Nintendo? I highly doubt it. Current market prices for retro games is pretty solid proof that if said developers/pubishers/Nintendos made these games "legally" available to those who don't want to deal with the collectors market, they could be making tons of money - but, they aren't.
Not necessarily, the price could be so high simply because the supply is very low. If Nintendo sold these games the supply would be practically infinite (Nintendo can as many as they like), but the demand would of course still be the same as it is now.
Those are my thoughts as well. If you can't purchase the game new anymore, it makes no difference how you obtain it - the developer/publisher won't see any more or less money. Piracy is scummy for any games that still get new copies distributed, but anything that's out of production really doesn't matter anymore imo
@@cube2fox Pokémon games cost hundreds of dollars rn and there’s stores filled with stacks of them lol most of it is not a matter of supply and demand, there’s an artificial inflation of prices due to various external factors lately
@kiwikemist the country where I live barely has any Nintendo presence at all so prices are technically non existent. I more so meant pretty much every western country
The way I see it, if the devs aren't selling it anymore, it's fair game for emulation. Especially for a lot of older games, it's a simple choice between downloading a 2mb file or not ever playing the game because you can't find or afford it and all the hardware required.
It's really hard to understand why Nintendo doesn't just create their own DS / GBA / GBC / GB multicarts for the switch and then just require A base Nintendo online subscription to maintain saves. This would have been much better setup than the current Nintendo Online format imo.
It all comes down to greed, They're not gonna put in the time or even pay their own staff to do this and They're afraid we won't buy as much of their new content or even some of their new hardware.
And they keep building their newer hardware cheaper now because they have noticed that their older hardware lasts too long... it's all greed and that's why I stopped supporting Nintendo and I decided to go entirely with PC from here on forward. I do not expect a manufacturer of toys for little boys to ever understand better business practice.
@@lorneross49 They actually stand to make more money from such an endeavor, but I do fear you are correct that they are absolutely unwilling at least for now to pool the resources needed. I am super amused by the "toys for little boys" quip. You see Nintendo initially entered the market by making gambling and adult themed toys, and I do often think about the irony that they ended up shifting over to the children's market demographic. It is very true that since highschool I have been an avid PC gamer UNTIL the past year or so due to the various factors such as the chip shortage and inflation of PC componentry. Suddenly, just like when I was a mere lad with a ps1 and a GBA, I found myself suddenly with a Switch and a PS3. I still do play steam games on pc probably 75% of the time nonetheless. Every so often though, it's really nice to just load up a game at the ready via console. Digressions aside, the fact remains that the switch console has a very healthy number of users between the ages of 20-40. Furthermore, it is estimated that roughly 30% of all console / PC gamers spend in the range of $100-250 yearly on games, and an additional 10% spend $500+. So it is therefore established that, if such a product were made available, 40% or more of the entire age marketshare would potentially be captured to play these classic packs and a sizable portion still would ofc pay for the saving subscription for the conveniences. Nintendo does I think recognize this to an extent, and that's why we're suddenly seeing products like the Mario and Zelda Game and Watch handhelds. It's their way of dipping their feet into new waters. They are playing it a bit on the safe side and they very well might miss the opportunity in the end. (See www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-02-11-eedar-nintendo-switch-attracting-more-women-wider-age-ranges-over-time as one of many sources for the numbers I tossed out)
I'm sure same time in the future I will create I categories like that have old games like you said the switch already hacked so wean the switch ended the support I will have way more ways to play games with emulator fun made cartilage ect I'm sure for that
You can also play DS games on a 3DS at their native resolution instead of all stretched out and blurry (specially on an XL). To play at native resolution, press and hold START or SELECT when loading the game from the HOME Menu. It looks so much better this way!
My opinion on these type of carts. If the games were still available from the original publisher/programmers I would buy from them but since an over inflated e-bay price gives nothing back to the creators, get the games where you can and can afford. Video games were created to be played and enjoyed not sitting in a sealed case on shelf so it can go up in value.
How would you know if you have never created your own game. Also not yours to decide! When you make your own hit game you can give it away for free but till that day you can sit one out on this discussion if all you can bring to the table is the overshared consumers opinion.
@@BeIlG you’re an idiot, these were made ages ago contracts have been fulfilled. People made their money most if not all companies have moved onto other revenue streams. If cross gen was available at all times for such consoles then this wouldn’t be an issue games wouldn’t get traded as much collectors wouldn’t be able to hoard the favourites because people never let them go. Life goes on bank accounts move on and you’re just a dink
@@BeIlG you think game creators get paid when someone sells their games second hand? some dickhead on ebay selling pokemon games for $100 isn't paying royalties to the devs.
@@BeIlG how about YOU sit out on this discussion because you obviously have no clue how idiotic what you just said is. These games went for 30-40$ each when nintendo released them, and now some neckbeard collectors on ebay are charging 70 and up for the same games. And NONE of that money is going back to nintendo or any of the developers, so I'd much rather pay 10-20 bucks to play all the classic games i miss playing. Honestly you can fuck right off.
@@JerginBootwyler If you don't feel that some games are worth the $70, then don't get it. If you really want it, you can save up and get them. You don't need it, and obtaining it through piracy is illegal, despite the age of the game.
Honestly, I've got no problem with these carts and I actually think they play a really important part in the market. As a collector, I'd rather have the full experience even without any nostalgia... I want to read the box, flip through the manuals, see the cart artwork, etc. But since none of the cost goes to the actually publishers, these things are important for those that can't afford these ridiculous prices.
Ah yes, the title of game and what is the game about printed on a piece of high gloss paper, put in a plastic box containing a 2 page notice about legal stuff and promotional material (Manuals aren't a thing with modern games wtf you on about). And it's funny because there's nothing you can even put after your "etc" you fucking dork. Go buy 3DS boxes, print the art on high-gloss paper cut it out and stop buying garbage.
@@anita.b ironically you're comment is full of holes given what the other person said, for instance "collectors" go way further back than 3DS and those games do have manuals. They never said anything about modern games, you did. A lot of old games also had papers in them for promotions and stuff, you ain't printing that out. Another issue is that printing out the box art is very likely to have the image be nowhere near the quality of the official box art. Tldr don't be a jerk because you don't care about the original packaging and somebody else does.
@@Kairi5431 no kidding, i printed off a case art insert for pokemon xd but ditched it for a real if slightly beaten one as soon as i found one orphaned from its disc
you should NEVER give money to these types though. It is proven that detectives show these are big cartels, human trafficers, slave labor types. It is way more ethical to download the roms illegally for free. DO not fund evil!
Also, if you want to reset or backup your save, you can open up a menu by clicking X or something and where it’s like file types and you see nds as a selected option, you can scroll to “nds + sav” to see save files and you can back it up or delete it to start fresh again
What’s cool is that trading works with Black/White. You can trade and battle with someone that has an authentic copy or someone that has another 208 in 1 cart
I'll be honest, I'm not convinced I've ever actually bought a DS game. I had the TT card and later bought a R4, but by the time I got into it the DS was already an old system.
@Dany Henriquez Naw not really. The Nintendo Wii was one of the best consoles and had huge sales, yet was the center of piracy. Remember waninkoko? Yeah piracy doesn’t hit as hard as you think it does. But hey pretend if you must 🤷🏻♂️
@Dany Henriquez You are correct, I'm not a DS collector. I collect for the Switch and GameCube, and I also collect retro hardware. I also don't believe in modding current systems, or pirating games that I can buy new or digitally where the developer and publisher can directly benefit. But if there's no way my purchase can benefit either - i.e. it is no longer in print, the system is retired, etc. - then I'm not going to lose sleep over downloading it elsewhere. In fact that's the only way some games are even playable. Consider the entirety of the WiiWare library, for instance.
And about the emulaton debate, I am almost 100% sure emulation helps sell more games. Ask anyone that emulated games in the past. You'll find as adults they have bought games they have previously emulated for free.
As someone who used to be a staunch opponent of piracy and "sketchy" means of playing retro games...the market has just hit a point where it's hard to justify the prices for games I may not even LIKE. Also, Nintendo only exasperates the issue by not making anything available on their digital stores. What was there to stop them from making the GBA library available on the 3DS (among other consoles)? Or even DS titles! I use roms as a means of testing before I buy. If it's a game I really get into, I'll shell out for it, but I'm not paying +$100 for any game... especially without testing it first.
There was apparently something called a 3ds ambassador and those people could play GBA games on the 3ds. The 3ds is backwards compatible with gba games but it lacks the firmware to run them there is a guy making a firmware that lets you run it but you need to homebrew the 3ds to use it.
@@anonman8661 Oh, I'm very aware. The ambassador program was proof enough that 3DS could run GBA. I currently have custom firmware installed on two of my 3DS and they can run all pre-3DS Nintendo handhelds flawlessly, as-well as Nes, Snes, and quite a bit of N64. Like, they never even went and made the Ambassador titles available for purchase. It just blows my mind that they'd leave such easy money on the table like that.
Nintendo not implementing gba games for the 3ds, while the 3ds has a chip that can run gba natively, is something i never really understood. Glad i homebrewed my 2ds, installing GBA games is a breeze!
due to the current landscape of shelf collectors causing inflation on used games I'm all for this. nothing will beat the "feeling" of the original box and cart but the resale prices are crazy nowadays.
This is great for multiplayer games. I already have copies of mario kart, party, bros ect. It’s great to use the flash so I don’t have to buy second copies of all those games
I have this exact cart. It’s definitely one of the best of the 5 or 6 that look like this one. The I say with fewer games always seem to have much better games!
I spent hours figuring out if this is the best one and I think it is. I wanted to make sure there wasn't another out there with better games overall. It has a lot of crap games but the ratio of good to bad is great and the amount of classics overall is quite high.
you should NEVER give money to these types though. It is proven that detectives show these are big cartels, human trafficers, slave labor types. It is way more ethical to download the roms illegally for free. DO not fund evil!
Old IP is one of the few things that can survive as attainable by the average person forty years after its release. The games were never intended to be sold for more than five years, at most. Once you hit the ten year mark there is no way the original makers get anything out of a physical copy of a game. There is no expectation they would get anything from those secondary sales, either. Just like book publishers. When you see companies put their games online it's because they've suddenly realized there's a market for nostalgic games. But the key here is they never expected and cannot predict that money. Once games have hit that point, unless a game is being changed and fundamentally hurts a company's reputation, it should be considered free in its unaltered form. Companies like GoG do a great job of curating old games for reasonable prices working with developers. Companies like Nintendo charge outrageous prices for second chance grabs at titles they don't even bother to update to remove bugs. Always keep in mind that the game was made to be profitable for a certain time and once that time has past anything else it makes is extra candy. They don't need it.
Originally R4 cards were recognized by the 3DS as an R4 but Nintendo later sent out updates killing the R4. Later on they used the starter key from a few different games to get around the boot load for it to work. I had 2 or 3 of these R4 cards.
i got this one during the summer and it worked great. i had a really bad dongle to my computer and it wiped everything off, it took so long to figure out which software to download LMAO and now it works again, but with the games i choose now rather than the base 208
Best combo is the R4i Gold combined with RetroGameFan Multi Cart Update. No useless extras like media players or ebook readers, but it's super stable, no-nonsense interface and anti-piracy patches for pretty much everything built in. Works fine on 3DS as well. And most importantly: no time bomb.
Actually got an r4i gold myself with the retrogamefan cart update. Definitely works and plays all my games very well, with the small exception of the Wall-E game, that one has a stroke for some reason.
I bought one with 128 DS games on it from Amazon (UK) for about a tenner- next day shipping - and have it permanently installed in my DSi-XL...... great value, works perfectly!! I know they're 'dodgy', but with the prices on eBay for just the DS Pokemon games, who can blame anyone for buying these cartridges today if you want to collect DS games? Nice video.. :-)
See, I just HBrewed my old DSiXL because fuck spending 100 bucks on Solorotobo. There's definitely a disconnect between pirating older software and newer. Older software is just harder to come by, again Solotorobo is 100 bucks, some games were never translated so fan ROMs got made... Nintendo isn't making money off DS games anymore anyway
I got an R4 clone all the way back in 2016. One of the things I quickly learned was that the recommended firmware had a (really lame) "time bomb" that prevented you from playing past a certain date in 2018. So I got an alternate firmware and have been rocking that flashcart to this day. One thing to note is that most of these carts run the games in OG DS mode, so if a game uses enhanced DSi features (camera, more processing power), a DSi or 3DS would NOT be able to access those, and may even crash the game.
Pirating those games is not more unethical than asking 100 bucks for a cartridge on eBay. These games are not being made anymore, whoever had a hand in making them has nothing to do with the current listings of used sales, it's hurting no one.
If you press abxy and LR at the same time it brings up the game select menu while in a game but no quick load or anything. Pressing start (I think it's either that or select cant remember from the top of my head sorry) and file options allows for cheats and multiple save options, meaning you can get different saves on a single game like pokemon. Another thing to take note of is any cartridges such as these that dont have the r4 symbol may have the risk of bricking, but as far as i could tell from researching these work perfectly fine as well as from my own experience
I literally just came across that exact one in a thrift store over the weekend. Bought it just for the hell of it even though I already have a modded 3DS.
I don’t see any comments saying this, but to get back to the Ace3ds menu, the default is to press L,R,A,B,X,Y all at the same time. There is a way to change/disable it as well!
I feel like these days retro gaming is more about owning games than actually playing them, so even more power to those who buy flashcart to re-live their memories. Since these games are no longer being made, and if you buy used ones from eBay the only people benefiting from the sales of those game are collectors and not developers, then why bother?
@@maiastniki I once played earthbound emulated on my phone. That was the time I bought games to play. Now I am kinda a collector myself (or just having my old items in good condition). Ah... Emulators are amazing
you should NEVER give money to these types though. It is proven that detectives show these are big cartels, human trafficers, slave labor types. It is way more ethical to download the roms illegally for free. DO not fund evil!
I don't think the Ace3DS has any sort of button combo for bringinng up a menu. I believe (and this is without having messed around with one to know for sure, so I'm just speculating) that it is a fairly dumb card with no advanced features that warrant anything of such nature. In fact, the only card that I know of that has a pull up menu is the Supercard DSTWO, as it has advanced features such as Real Time cheat handling, slow Mo, save states, etc. All stuff that is possible from the card's built in ARM CPU, which most cheaper cards don't have. The only button combo the Ace is likely to have is the one to soft reset the "game"
There is no pull up menu but if you press X, Y, A, B, Left button and right button at the same time it takes you back to the original menu. Hovering over a game and pressing Y lets you use loads of cheats such as infinite shiny Pokemon, always level 100 Pokemon... It works great as long as you don't go too far with the cheats
The CycloDS Evolution (NDS) had a pull up menu, as far as I can remember. Edit: Realtime save/load, Slow motion, cheats on/off. Various other tweaks and options.
I got one of these a few years back. Works perfectly and the ds reads it ad a legit card. Never had a problem. If you press Y on the game menu you can use cheats on selected game. The games all work with download and play and work playing with other cards. Playing Pokemon right now and I am still able to trade from card to card.
When i got my green DS Lite i got Mario & Sonic At The Olympic with its as a bundle and that the only game i had ever got for the DS. Sold the game to get a R4 and never look back.
Although I already had my "must have" official games for my DS, I also got a similar flashcard, named R4 Dual-Core, which uses the same UI as the one in the video, based on the Acecard 2i. Bought back in 2013, for 15 euros iirc, still works, saves, no lag or anything, can also trade with official cartridges. The files in the SD were corrupted at some point, but that was my fault, as I accidentally touched the SD while the DS was on (a backup of the files always comes in handy). Great solution for people that want to experience a game that neither is fairly priced nor easy to find in the market at this point. Games shouldn't come with a "deadline" to access by the public for some years and then becoming a "collector's only" item gathering dust on a shelf.
Bought it last year ago and to be honest, it’s great! I’m a modder so I modded my 3DS xl and add a lot of homebrew-made stuff in it. In the cartridge, there’s a sd that you could import more files by via .nds files. Heck you could even install a full dsi menu with using twilight menu and play many emulators such as nes, snes, game boy, game boy color, game boy advance, sega Genesis, and TurboGrafx 16! If you import moonshell, you could literally put videos and photos and heck, even dsi ware if you wanted to. I love the cartridge and even tho it was cheaply made (which is still sturdy) it’s worth my 16$
Coming from a collector I have no issues with this flash carts and I own sum r4 carts myself. In my opinion it’s just an option for people, if you aren’t into collecting for genuine games but u just wanna play these games then these are a good option. Not to mention they r good for travelling as a ds lite is small to fit in ur pocket and then have one of these carts with a bunch of games on it
Looks cool. I haven't played my 3ds for a long while and "own" most of these for emulation, but I wouldn't mind having a cart version for posterity.... but 208 is oos atm.
I think emulation is fine for games that the companies are no longer selling/can't make a profit from. Like the Mario ds games weren't released else where to my knowledge so Nintendo have no way of profiting from your want to play that game.
Absolutely, I would say that the statute of limitations for emulation of games is about 7 or 8 years. Anything after that time is fair enough in my book.
@@dogg-paws no court would waste their time with some dude who downloaded a few games that are decades old. Now someone who distributes roms online or the sellers of flashcarts they will gladly make an example of, but not some joe nobody. Worst case realistically they would moan to that dude's isp to issue an email threatening them. Actually collecting evidence and dragging every low level pirate to court is a massive waste of time and money for them, which is why there are so many high profile articles about them going after the source, rom distribution and hw/sw that defeats security.
I think there's a handful of DS games available on the Wii U eshop, right? While not exactly practical these days, that's still an official avenue to play some of them where the money goes to the creators.
I've used a number of these cards over the years, because I don't care about the ethics of piracy. The biggest issue I have with these is sometimes the cards are made with poor manufacturing tolerances, causing them to have poor contact, but you can sometimes use a piece of paper to help it "press" against the contacts better. I don't know if it's my card or my 3DS (which is fairly old) but the cards I own have a tendency to lose connection, which causes the system to think it was ejected and completely turn off or quit without saving. So I've got my system soft-modded and run everything directly off the internal card. It's not 100% the same, it does cause problems with some games, but the majority work just fine. (I'm sure Retro Future knows all this stuff, I'm mostly elaborating for others.) These cards usually show up using the header of a legitimate game, such as Atlantis Squarepantis here, in order to work with an unmodified system. Firmware updates have included blacklists to block these cards in the past, and might even be a whitelist now that no more official NDS games are being made. If you have an older card that is now blocked, some of them can be updated, but you'll need an older system with older firmware to run the card and the updater program. Once inside the menu, these cards almost always allow you to download a skin that lets you customize the appearance of the menu. These are generally made by the community and then collected by websites, and it might be difficult to find them due to their age, but there are also ways to create your own skins. I'm not artistic, so I never looked into it, so I don't know how easy/difficult it is. I just know it's possible. As for saving, the card writes the save files to the SD card, so you can back them up to your computer, like if you're swapping out what games you have loaded. Each game is contained in an .nds file, and the AceKard/R4/etc card will write a .sav file to the card in the same folder and name as the .nds. Games can be arranged in folders if you choose, which can make organizing large lists like this a lot easier, since it seems the seller of this card didn't do that automatically. Most of the time, these cards don't come with games pre-loaded, because that usually draws more attention from the authorities than the card itself, but the .nds files can be found online and added to the card easily. So if one of these doesn't have a game you really want, it can be added.
Aftermarket piracy is the only way I play games that haven't been remade or ported to newer consoles. I've sworn off using my NES and SNES consoles & games in fear of breaking them. Now my DS library should be safe for life. I'll likely save the files from this cart to my PC as backup 😅
IMO the best way to play DS games is to get a 2ds or 3ds, softmod it (you only need a PC) and install twlight menu. this way you can have all the functionality of a flashcart with the added bonus of luigis mansion 2
I have never played the generation five Pokémon games, and it is very hard to find any pre-owned copies that aren’t listed for outrageous prices… This may be a good way for me to finally experience those games :) Thank you!
I actually have one of these and have been modifying it to my whims called a 482 in 1 was a ace3ds clone so i just erased everything except the roms and installed the original ace3ds on it and put my fave games on it including gbarunner and some crash bandicoot EDIT: And oh yeah there are shortcuts to get back to the menu you can configure it by clicking on the settings button on the bottom left of the games menu
Fun fact: If nobody bought these flash carts, those $100 Pokemon games on eBay would be $400, and retro gaming would slip even further towards being exclusive to people with a lot of money on hand
I remember when I was in Afghanistan I found a multi-cart at a bazaar. There was no visible slot for a microSD card on it. But, if you popped the case open it was actually a DSTT. I cut a small hole in the case so I could access the roms and I got a flash cart cheaper in a “store” than I would have been able to find one online.
I remember getting scammed buying one of these when I was little. But I'm going to take another chance on this one! Definitely don't feel guilty about it either because I spent hundreds of euros on DS games back in the day...
I actually bought that exact cartridge and it’s unbelievable. I got one for the nes with almost 300 games on it, a snes one with 9000 (not a typo) on it and a n64 one with every release all 3 multicarts for less than $100. Thank you to whoever makes these now I can have a huge collection and display it without needing an entire extra room to do so.
I prefer using a hacked console because there's way more you can do with those but if somebody just wants to play games and doesn't want to risk bricking their console, then I'd say these carts are a good alternative.
Btw I meant that they load it with older games from specific systems, not switch stuff. Basically just a collection of older games depending on the cart.
These type of SD card multicarts usually come with a stripped down version of the ACE3DS software with basically one emulator . If you track down the full ACE3DS software package it has emulators to play Atari , Famicom , Gameboy , Mega Drive , PCEngine , Neo-Geo , SNES . I think the firmware is called "aos v2.13"
The way I see it , I have around 80 original DS games . I'm not going to take the chance of losing them , when I travel I bring a cheap ROM cart all-in-one instead .
@@Bane_Amesta It only affects some R4 models. If you can still use your R4 then that means your R4 isn’t affected. You have to update the firmware of your R4 or change the date of your DS to avoid the timebomb.
The R4 card in this video is an Ace3DS+ clone with no timebomb. It works well, but comes with a cheap SD card, so it's worth swapping out for a reliable one (especially if you care about your save files). R4 cards with "SDHC" on the labels contain timebombs, so they stop working after a certain date. PSA: Although there are workarounds, it's better to not support anti-consumer practices, so I highly recommend staying away from them.
Just watched the video, and sent me off on a mind journey.... First my thought was that if you had previously owned the game back in the day then you technically still had the license to play it so no problem buying one of these carts, That led me to remember the license agreement on all those old games which stated that you were buying a licence and it could not be resold... I then thought, "but they sell them all the time" and I considered maybe they can sell the carts,box,package etc, but according to the licencing they cant sell you the right to play it . And I end up here.. just because you buy an original game, As far a piracy etc, are you any better ? I mean just because you pay hundreds for it, Nintendo are not getting paid a licence fee from that either. disclaimer: not a lawyer, no opinion on ethics, just an interesting thought i had..
A lot of DS flashcarts, including this one, can actually be modified to boot a 3DS into software that installs custom firmware, similar to booting a PC from a USB drive, called "ntrboot". The 3DS's firmware signature check (which is unpatchable) has a well-known flaw, and ntrboot works by using an undocumented service boot function to get the system to load its firmware from a DS cartridge instead of internal ROM. So at least there is something 3DS-specific that it can do.
Thank you so much for this video! I hopped on Amazon and ordered one right after this was over. Just the Dragon quest games on there had me sold! Thank you for sharing this with the world =).
That’s actually something I’d never really considered, but I guess it does help people who want to own them physically as well. I recently bought a legit boxed copy of Chrono Trigger on DS. It sure as hell wasn’t cheap, but it would’ve been a damn sight more expensive if cards like this didn’t exist.
Piracy is the only reasonable way to experience old games without much fuss. Get over it, it's okay to play 20 year old roms. Nobody should care if it's ethical or not.
@Dany Henriquez that is just how reality works. If your game was cracked\dumped then it's there for anyone to use. And when talking about decade old roms it usually means original developer can't profit from it anyway so there is zero harm.
Found one in an Amazon Return bins type store for $7. It’s basically a store that buys boxes full of Amazon returned items, which then sells those items at bargain prices.
This made me dig out my old DS with a Supercard and R4 up it. So many games, I had forgot, Ive spent the last 30mins playing Diddy Kong racing and im amped, Cheers for the reminder :)
I have this exact game cart! The only difference is that I have modified it so that it is organized in a way that I can find the game I want even faster. (Really wish Ace let us modify the cart's UI, also, Ace's site is still stuck on its 2016 December holiday UI) Edit: so, I wonder if we will get multicarts that are for the Switch Edit: Go into settings, you can set up a command that lets you exit the game and enter the cartridge, I personally use L+R+A+B+V (To enter settings, load slot 1 on the main menu, then hit start, it will show a little pop up menu, it should show settings, if you look around, you can find the process to set your command.)
Piracy is based, but if you're going to pirate its better to just buy a r4 gold and load the roms yourself. Most of the time carts like this are timebombed, meaning they will shut down after a certain amount of time. Setting up an R4 gold cart with Twilightmenu+ is cheaper and will last much longer.
These things are pretty much pre loaded R4 cards, and that's awesome. I have an R4 gold with my own games on it. Great invention. Screw paying over 80$ for the Dragon quest games on DS, lol.
Emulation is ok as long as the devs don't suffer from it: Like, if the company does not exist anymore...or if the game is too old and unavailable on current hardware/online platform. Otherwise, I think we can all agree that we should support the people making the games that we love > It's a tough business and every $ matters (doesn't matter if it's a big or small company)...
Ace3ds is based off of the Wood R4 kernel and to soft reset the card try any of these button combos: L+R+A+B+X+Y, L+R+touch screen, Start+R+touch screen, L+R+A+B+Down, or L+R+B+Y+Down
The piracy issue with vintage consoles has a shelf life. We are in one of the last generations of consoles with physical releases. Within most of our lifetimes, powerful expensive consoles will be a thing of the past. You will only need a device as powerful as a chromebook to play games, and you will only play them when they say you can.
a better way of spending that money would be in a 8-32 Gb SD card and just CFW ur 3ds, u get homebrew apps custom themes and badges and all the roms u would want (imo its a better deal than a flash cart like that)
My brothers both had one of these preloaded flashcarts with a sticker slapped on it and the people who filled it up used the smallest microSD, and filled it with as many (small) games as possible to pad the number, and most of them were garbage. My oldest brother's one had built in (non removable) storage, the issue being you needed a special piece of hardware to add/delete games on it, and they had filled it up so much that after using it a bit, it ran out of room to store save data, and there was no way without the special flasher to clear up space to allow it to save. With a MicroSD of course that's no problem.
I got one of these recently for just under £5, mainly for Professor Layton's professor and the last Specter, which included the mini game Professor Layton's London Life, which was removed in the UK version at the time. Level 5 didn't have the time to translate it to all five main EU languages before it's release date, so they just removed it.
This is an acekard (clone)! 😜 I bought one of these this year and replaced unwanted roms with my own selection. You can also swap microSD card for a bigger capacity and just copy or download system files, even put new skins or menus. It's better and cheaper solution than buying any other flashcart nowadays.
I bought one of these and was able to put my own rom collection on it and placed them all into folders alphabetically grouped :) so cheap and easy to do.
Ever since i was a kid i always wanted to get access to the old Gen 3 Pokemon Events like Lugia.mew and Deoxys. Last year i got an R4 and i was able to download the app for event distubition and complete my dream at the age of 25. For anyone that want to relive their memories an R4 will do the thing.
I'd say at this point the preservation of video games is strictly in the hands of pirates. I doubt Nintendo ever intends on making new ds or 3ds systems, so those games will all inevitably die if we don't catalog and preserve them ourselves. Maybe instead of pirate we should say conservationist.
Nintendo: You guys are pirates!
Pirates: We prefer the term "high-risk conservationist."
@@mutt7883 haha that's a good one
@@harvivekdhindsa6809 i did the same, got botw for my switch (late in 2019). But it ran poorly on the switch and looked very grainy (cant stand 30fps), i have a pretty high end gaming pc so played it at 4k and 60fps on my pc. I got the game for 70bucks, in my home im free to enjoy it like i want.. that's how i see it.
you should NEVER give money to these types though. It is proven that detectives show these are big cartels, human trafficers, slave labor types. It is way more ethical to download the roms illegally for free. DO not fund evil!
I agree... So many games that don't work anymore because of dependencies to online services. At least these older consoles can have their entire catalogue backed up. Try doing that with the latest ps3 and xbox games..
The R4 card absolutely saved the day when my young son left his entire collection of ds games in a carry case at the dentist (never to be seen again!). There was no way we could afford to replace all those cartridges.
@Paradouxum Games can you elaborate? Not sure I follow.
@Paradouxum Games no it didn't at all
@Yugoslavia Radio idk if you’re gonna respond to this but the same thing happened to me and i went into the files and there was a file called DEMOX.(something) or something like that and i just deleted it and everything seemed to work fine again 🤷♂️
@Yugoslavia Radio makes sense. I thought it was like a DEMO function so you can only play it a limited amount of time
Did the cartridge last
Saw the original video when it first came out and immediatelly went and got myself one of those cartridges, aswell as this one showed in this video. Both are still going strong!
That’s crazy! Thanks for sticking by me!
@@TheRetroFuture exact same situation but i homebrewed my 3ds instead 🤪
@@TheRetroFuture thank you for the great content! You are also what got me into retro tech, so you have my thanks for that aswell!
@@aimeeonline4315 mmmm yes the power of homebrew 3ds….
Haha me too, that how I got back into my DS, and around the time I got into the channel too :)
I think there would be an argument against these.... IF Nintendo actually made these older games reasonably available. They could make a lot of money and avoid this issue by putting emulators on the switch and allowing people to buy the games again. If they made the entire DS library available at $10 per rom (like they did with GBC games on 3ds), I would drop a couple hundred right now.
The convenience and the cost savings of this thing is amazing. The way I see it, if you do not make something available that is in demand, someone else will.
They would probably run poorly like their N64 virtual console games.
@@EarthsGeomancer if they put effort into it or just allowed us to use the homebrew made ones it would run fine it’s not a hardware issue
Having to buy the games again is still far from ideal. Plus, even if they did make the older games reasonably available, these are large corporations we're talking about, not something worthy of sympathy.
I completely agree, it does seem wild to me that roms are such a divisive issue when so many games are completely unable to be bought or played officially on current hardware.
I do also agree with the other comments though on the issue of poor emulation. I personally will almost always prefer to play games on their original hardware to avoid those emulation issues, and especially with ds and 3ds they just don't translate well to other systems because of all the ds special features.
Personally I think if it's out of print, it's made its sales, and roms are a preservation and accessibility issue. By their nature, physical copies will always become harder to find over time, as copies get lost or damaged or degrade - let alone if there weren't many copies printed to begin with! The money spent buying expensive second hand copies doesn't support the developers in any way, shape or form, and especially with pokemon there's a fair chance you might be buying a rom in a knock off shell anyway!
Ultimately at this stage it's a game file loaded onto a chip, whether it was printed at Nintendo headquarters or not.
Look I'm not saying piracy is bad (literally modded 4 consoles to do so) but _the Wii U eShop does exist, and sells a lot of DS games for around $10_
*ALTERNATIVE TITLE:*
_Millenial Discovers R4 Card_
ok
there is a way to get back to the Menu! For me, I press L and R And ABXY at the same time and it brings me back to the menu to select a ROM.
This also works for R4 based cards, in case someone else comes across this comment in the future.
@@havefeith - thank you. I never knew how to get back on my R4!! You da man!!
@@reagandow850 you can press Y whole hovering over a game to open a cheat menu
@@havefeith Neat! Personally I’ve never owned an R4 but I have one of these, it does the trick thought.
Just wanted to say that I like how more laid back you are with making your videos. It's a lot more fluent and more real. Keep up the good work!
Really appreciate that thank you
I bought this same cart this year, every game saves no probs! No glitches everything plays perfect. Love all the pokemon games!
do they keep time (like pokemon emerald)? So they sync the time?
Can you trade from one game to other or to something like pokemon home with from the pokemon games on the cart
I’d like to know all this too! If that’s the case, I’ll be for sure buying one lol!
@@fredmiller2955 yeah u can trade
Well now that is really worth the money you can buy them all like that instead of paying the claiming prices for one of the older games just to be able to catch them and of them all in your name as the owner thank you for the info
I have more nostalgia for the flash card I owned than any of my legal games. I was just so happy I was able to convince my father to buy the thing off that somewhat shady site, and it opened up so many doors I hadn't even considered before owning it.
Ports, homebrew, emulation, video and music playback (though video was too fiddly to do more than once), and cheating without that bulky gameshark thing. I think DS homebrew was my first ever experience with Minecraft in fact, the DScraft game, while extremely simple and unfinished, was enough to get my young creative juices flowing and experience a sliver of what I was missing out on. I think the first ever journal I kept was via some homebrew DS note taking homebrew.
I... need a working DS and an R4 gold card now.
Is there a single game on this cart that can be legally purchased where even a single cent goes to the developer/publisher/Nintendo? I highly doubt it. Current market prices for retro games is pretty solid proof that if said developers/pubishers/Nintendos made these games "legally" available to those who don't want to deal with the collectors market, they could be making tons of money - but, they aren't.
Not necessarily, the price could be so high simply because the supply is very low. If Nintendo sold these games the supply would be practically infinite (Nintendo can as many as they like), but the demand would of course still be the same as it is now.
Those are my thoughts as well. If you can't purchase the game new anymore, it makes no difference how you obtain it - the developer/publisher won't see any more or less money. Piracy is scummy for any games that still get new copies distributed, but anything that's out of production really doesn't matter anymore imo
@@cube2fox Pokémon games cost hundreds of dollars rn and there’s stores filled with stacks of them lol most of it is not a matter of supply and demand, there’s an artificial inflation of prices due to various external factors lately
Who cares about the publisher or Nintendo? Only the developers matter to me, and even then only as individual people.
@kiwikemist the country where I live barely has any Nintendo presence at all so prices are technically non existent. I more so meant pretty much every western country
The way I see it, if the devs aren't selling it anymore, it's fair game for emulation. Especially for a lot of older games, it's a simple choice between downloading a 2mb file or not ever playing the game because you can't find or afford it and all the hardware required.
It's really hard to understand why Nintendo doesn't just create their own DS / GBA / GBC / GB multicarts for the switch and then just require A base Nintendo online subscription to maintain saves. This would have been much better setup than the current Nintendo Online format imo.
That's a pretty incredible idea honestly
It all comes down to greed, They're not gonna put in the time or even pay their own staff to do this and They're afraid we won't buy as much of their new content or even some of their new hardware.
And they keep building their newer hardware cheaper now because they have noticed that their older hardware lasts too long... it's all greed and that's why I stopped supporting Nintendo and I decided to go entirely with PC from here on forward. I do not expect a manufacturer of toys for little boys to ever understand better business practice.
@@lorneross49 They actually stand to make more money from such an endeavor, but I do fear you are correct that they are absolutely unwilling at least for now to pool the resources needed. I am super amused by the "toys for little boys" quip. You see Nintendo initially entered the market by making gambling and adult themed toys, and I do often think about the irony that they ended up shifting over to the children's market demographic. It is very true that since highschool I have been an avid PC gamer UNTIL the past year or so due to the various factors such as the chip shortage and inflation of PC componentry. Suddenly, just like when I was a mere lad with a ps1 and a GBA, I found myself suddenly with a Switch and a PS3. I still do play steam games on pc probably 75% of the time nonetheless. Every so often though, it's really nice to just load up a game at the ready via console. Digressions aside, the fact remains that the switch console has a very healthy number of users between the ages of 20-40. Furthermore, it is estimated that roughly 30% of all console / PC gamers spend in the range of $100-250 yearly on games, and an additional 10% spend $500+. So it is therefore established that, if such a product were made available, 40% or more of the entire age marketshare would potentially be captured to play these classic packs and a sizable portion still would ofc pay for the saving subscription for the conveniences. Nintendo does I think recognize this to an extent, and that's why we're suddenly seeing products like the Mario and Zelda Game and Watch handhelds. It's their way of dipping their feet into new waters. They are playing it a bit on the safe side and they very well might miss the opportunity in the end.
(See www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-02-11-eedar-nintendo-switch-attracting-more-women-wider-age-ranges-over-time as one of many sources for the numbers I tossed out)
I'm sure same time in the future I will create I categories like that have old games like you said the switch already hacked so wean the switch ended the support I will have way more ways to play games with emulator fun made cartilage ect
I'm sure for that
In my opinion if a company isn't selling their games on a current console, I think it's fair game to download and play it.
You can also play DS games on a 3DS at their native resolution instead of all stretched out and blurry (specially on an XL). To play at native resolution, press and hold START or SELECT when loading the game from the HOME Menu. It looks so much better this way!
Very nice pro-tip I had never heard this before
only downside is the games are the size of a grape on a non-XL model
My opinion on these type of carts. If the games were still available from the original publisher/programmers I would buy from them but since an over inflated e-bay price gives nothing back to the creators, get the games where you can and can afford. Video games were created to be played and enjoyed not sitting in a sealed case on shelf so it can go up in value.
How would you know if you have never created your own game. Also not yours to decide! When you make your own hit game you can give it away for free but till that day you can sit one out on this discussion if all you can bring to the table is the overshared consumers opinion.
@@BeIlG you’re an idiot, these were made ages ago contracts have been fulfilled. People made their money most if not all companies have moved onto other revenue streams. If cross gen was available at all times for such consoles then this wouldn’t be an issue games wouldn’t get traded as much collectors wouldn’t be able to hoard the favourites because people never let them go. Life goes on bank accounts move on and you’re just a dink
@@BeIlG you think game creators get paid when someone sells their games second hand? some dickhead on ebay selling pokemon games for $100 isn't paying royalties to the devs.
@@BeIlG how about YOU sit out on this discussion because you obviously have no clue how idiotic what you just said is. These games went for 30-40$ each when nintendo released them, and now some neckbeard collectors on ebay are charging 70 and up for the same games. And NONE of that money is going back to nintendo or any of the developers, so I'd much rather pay 10-20 bucks to play all the classic games i miss playing. Honestly you can fuck right off.
@@JerginBootwyler If you don't feel that some games are worth the $70, then don't get it. If you really want it, you can save up and get them. You don't need it, and obtaining it through piracy is illegal, despite the age of the game.
Honestly, I've got no problem with these carts and I actually think they play a really important part in the market. As a collector, I'd rather have the full experience even without any nostalgia... I want to read the box, flip through the manuals, see the cart artwork, etc. But since none of the cost goes to the actually publishers, these things are important for those that can't afford these ridiculous prices.
Ah yes, the title of game and what is the game about printed on a piece of high gloss paper, put in a plastic box containing a 2 page notice about legal stuff and promotional material (Manuals aren't a thing with modern games wtf you on about).
And it's funny because there's nothing you can even put after your "etc" you fucking dork.
Go buy 3DS boxes, print the art on high-gloss paper cut it out and stop buying garbage.
@@anita.b ironically you're comment is full of holes given what the other person said, for instance "collectors" go way further back than 3DS and those games do have manuals. They never said anything about modern games, you did. A lot of old games also had papers in them for promotions and stuff, you ain't printing that out. Another issue is that printing out the box art is very likely to have the image be nowhere near the quality of the official box art. Tldr don't be a jerk because you don't care about the original packaging and somebody else does.
@@Kairi5431 no kidding, i printed off a case art insert for pokemon xd but ditched it for a real if slightly beaten one as soon as i found one orphaned from its disc
you should NEVER give money to these types though. It is proven that detectives show these are big cartels, human trafficers, slave labor types. It is way more ethical to download the roms illegally for free. DO not fund evil!
@@anita.b shut the fuck up your page is a cringe filled shitshack, your opinion is meaningless
Also, if you want to reset or backup your save, you can open up a menu by clicking X or something and where it’s like file types and you see nds as a selected option, you can scroll to “nds + sav” to see save files and you can back it up or delete it to start fresh again
The best part of these cards is that starting with the dsi they removed the gba slot.this card allows you to play Gameboy games again.
What’s cool is that trading works with Black/White. You can trade and battle with someone that has an authentic copy or someone that has another 208 in 1 cart
I'll be honest, I'm not convinced I've ever actually bought a DS game. I had the TT card and later bought a R4, but by the time I got into it the DS was already an old system.
Pretty sure I only bought Mario Kart DS and then it was R4 then Acekard
@Dany Henriquez Piracy exists for every platform, always will
@Dany Henriquez Naw not really. The Nintendo Wii was one of the best consoles and had huge sales, yet was the center of piracy. Remember waninkoko? Yeah piracy doesn’t hit as hard as you think it does. But hey pretend if you must 🤷🏻♂️
@Dany Henriquez Piracy is innevitable lad
@Dany Henriquez You are correct, I'm not a DS collector. I collect for the Switch and GameCube, and I also collect retro hardware. I also don't believe in modding current systems, or pirating games that I can buy new or digitally where the developer and publisher can directly benefit. But if there's no way my purchase can benefit either - i.e. it is no longer in print, the system is retired, etc. - then I'm not going to lose sleep over downloading it elsewhere. In fact that's the only way some games are even playable. Consider the entirety of the WiiWare library, for instance.
And about the emulaton debate, I am almost 100% sure emulation helps sell more games. Ask anyone that emulated games in the past. You'll find as adults they have bought games they have previously emulated for free.
id always buy any game i emulated if ever given the chance, i've done it before n always will
As someone who used to be a staunch opponent of piracy and "sketchy" means of playing retro games...the market has just hit a point where it's hard to justify the prices for games I may not even LIKE.
Also, Nintendo only exasperates the issue by not making anything available on their digital stores. What was there to stop them from making the GBA library available on the 3DS (among other consoles)? Or even DS titles!
I use roms as a means of testing before I buy. If it's a game I really get into, I'll shell out for it, but I'm not paying +$100 for any game... especially without testing it first.
They went with a pretty hacky solution to make GBA games run on 3DS
There was apparently something called a 3ds ambassador and those people could play GBA games on the 3ds. The 3ds is backwards compatible with gba games but it lacks the firmware to run them there is a guy making a firmware that lets you run it but you need to homebrew the 3ds to use it.
@@anonman8661 Oh, I'm very aware. The ambassador program was proof enough that 3DS could run GBA. I currently have custom firmware installed on two of my 3DS and they can run all pre-3DS Nintendo handhelds flawlessly, as-well as Nes, Snes, and quite a bit of N64. Like, they never even went and made the Ambassador titles available for purchase. It just blows my mind that they'd leave such easy money on the table like that.
Open agb firm runs gba games natively on the 3ds
Nintendo not implementing gba games for the 3ds, while the 3ds has a chip that can run gba natively, is something i never really understood. Glad i homebrewed my 2ds, installing GBA games is a breeze!
due to the current landscape of shelf collectors causing inflation on used games I'm all for this. nothing will beat the "feeling" of the original box and cart but the resale prices are crazy nowadays.
Even if you were to own all these games legitimately it is so much easier for a handheld device to just have all of these in one place.
This is great for multiplayer games. I already have copies of mario kart, party, bros ect. It’s great to use the flash so I don’t have to buy second copies of all those games
It works well with multiplayer???
I have this exact cart. It’s definitely one of the best of the 5 or 6 that look like this one. The I say with fewer games always seem to have much better games!
I spent hours figuring out if this is the best one and I think it is. I wanted to make sure there wasn't another out there with better games overall. It has a lot of crap games but the ratio of good to bad is great and the amount of classics overall is quite high.
you should NEVER give money to these types though. It is proven that detectives show these are big cartels, human trafficers, slave labor types. It is way more ethical to download the roms illegally for free. DO not fund evil!
@@BeIlG shut the FUCK up godDAMN with your copy and paste bullshit comment
@@BeIlG I think you mean China knock offs bud. Not saying that isnt the case sometimes but more than likely it's just cheap chinese knock offs
Old IP is one of the few things that can survive as attainable by the average person forty years after its release. The games were never intended to be sold for more than five years, at most. Once you hit the ten year mark there is no way the original makers get anything out of a physical copy of a game. There is no expectation they would get anything from those secondary sales, either. Just like book publishers. When you see companies put their games online it's because they've suddenly realized there's a market for nostalgic games. But the key here is they never expected and cannot predict that money. Once games have hit that point, unless a game is being changed and fundamentally hurts a company's reputation, it should be considered free in its unaltered form. Companies like GoG do a great job of curating old games for reasonable prices working with developers. Companies like Nintendo charge outrageous prices for second chance grabs at titles they don't even bother to update to remove bugs. Always keep in mind that the game was made to be profitable for a certain time and once that time has past anything else it makes is extra candy. They don't need it.
Originally R4 cards were recognized by the 3DS as an R4 but Nintendo later sent out updates killing the R4. Later on they used the starter key from a few different games to get around the boot load for it to work. I had 2 or 3 of these R4 cards.
i got this one during the summer and it worked great. i had a really bad dongle to my computer and it wiped everything off, it took so long to figure out which software to download LMAO and now it works again, but with the games i choose now rather than the base 208
Best combo is the R4i Gold combined with RetroGameFan Multi Cart Update.
No useless extras like media players or ebook readers, but it's super stable, no-nonsense interface and anti-piracy patches for pretty much everything built in. Works fine on 3DS as well. And most importantly: no time bomb.
Actually got an r4i gold myself with the retrogamefan cart update. Definitely works and plays all my games very well, with the small exception of the Wall-E game, that one has a stroke for some reason.
Wood is way better than YSMenu. Especially for rom hacks.
I swear everything from the late 90s and early 2000s-2010s seems to be so expensive and hard to find.
I bought one with 128 DS games on it from Amazon (UK) for about a tenner- next day shipping - and have it permanently installed in my DSi-XL...... great value, works perfectly!!
I know they're 'dodgy', but with the prices on eBay for just the DS Pokemon games, who can blame anyone for buying these cartridges today if you want to collect DS games?
Nice video.. :-)
0:06 Damn, 16 pounds? That’s heavy!
See, I just HBrewed my old DSiXL because fuck spending 100 bucks on Solorotobo. There's definitely a disconnect between pirating older software and newer. Older software is just harder to come by, again Solotorobo is 100 bucks, some games were never translated so fan ROMs got made... Nintendo isn't making money off DS games anymore anyway
I homebrewed my dsi but had no clue what was happening once I finished so now I just ignore it. How do you load roms onto it?
I got an R4 clone all the way back in 2016. One of the things I quickly learned was that the recommended firmware had a (really lame) "time bomb" that prevented you from playing past a certain date in 2018. So I got an alternate firmware and have been rocking that flashcart to this day.
One thing to note is that most of these carts run the games in OG DS mode, so if a game uses enhanced DSi features (camera, more processing power), a DSi or 3DS would NOT be able to access those, and may even crash the game.
Pirating those games is not more unethical than asking 100 bucks for a cartridge on eBay. These games are not being made anymore, whoever had a hand in making them has nothing to do with the current listings of used sales, it's hurting no one.
If you press abxy and LR at the same time it brings up the game select menu while in a game but no quick load or anything. Pressing start (I think it's either that or select cant remember from the top of my head sorry) and file options allows for cheats and multiple save options, meaning you can get different saves on a single game like pokemon. Another thing to take note of is any cartridges such as these that dont have the r4 symbol may have the risk of bricking, but as far as i could tell from researching these work perfectly fine as well as from my own experience
Thanks
I literally just came across that exact one in a thrift store over the weekend. Bought it just for the hell of it even though I already have a modded 3DS.
I don’t see any comments saying this, but to get back to the Ace3ds menu, the default is to press L,R,A,B,X,Y all at the same time. There is a way to change/disable it as well!
I feel like these days retro gaming is more about owning games than actually playing them, so even more power to those who buy flashcart to re-live their memories. Since these games are no longer being made, and if you buy used ones from eBay the only people benefiting from the sales of those game are collectors and not developers, then why bother?
You are just right!
it makes absolutely zero sense that earthbound for the snes os going for over 8k on ebay cuz ik ill never be able to have it
@@maiastniki I once played earthbound emulated on my phone. That was the time I bought games to play. Now I am kinda a collector myself (or just having my old items in good condition).
Ah... Emulators are amazing
@@MaryArts emulators are w gorsend
you should NEVER give money to these types though. It is proven that detectives show these are big cartels, human trafficers, slave labor types. It is way more ethical to download the roms illegally for free. DO not fund evil!
I don't think the Ace3DS has any sort of button combo for bringinng up a menu.
I believe (and this is without having messed around with one to know for sure, so I'm just speculating) that it is a fairly dumb card with no advanced features that warrant anything of such nature.
In fact, the only card that I know of that has a pull up menu is the Supercard DSTWO, as it has advanced features such as Real Time cheat handling, slow Mo, save states, etc. All stuff that is possible from the card's built in ARM CPU, which most cheaper cards don't have.
The only button combo the Ace is likely to have is the one to soft reset the "game"
Great info! Thank you
There is no pull up menu but if you press X, Y, A, B, Left button and right button at the same time it takes you back to the original menu. Hovering over a game and pressing Y lets you use loads of cheats such as infinite shiny Pokemon, always level 100 Pokemon... It works great as long as you don't go too far with the cheats
The CycloDS Evolution (NDS) had a pull up menu, as far as I can remember. Edit: Realtime save/load, Slow motion, cheats on/off. Various other tweaks and options.
@@TattiePeeler loved my cyclods. Was my only flash card and loved it to bits
@@thomasandrews9355, I loved mine too. A cult-like devotion to it among users..
I got one of these a few years back. Works perfectly and the ds reads it ad a legit card. Never had a problem. If you press Y on the game menu you can use cheats on selected game. The games all work with download and play and work playing with other cards. Playing Pokemon right now and I am still able to trade from card to card.
you're a good dude mate. I don't remember that old video being bad either so you're all good
When i got my green DS Lite i got Mario & Sonic At The Olympic with its as a bundle and that the only game i had ever got for the DS. Sold the game to get a R4 and never look back.
Although I already had my "must have" official games for my DS, I also got a similar flashcard, named R4 Dual-Core, which uses the same UI as the one in the video, based on the Acecard 2i.
Bought back in 2013, for 15 euros iirc, still works, saves, no lag or anything, can also trade with official cartridges. The files in the SD were corrupted at some point, but that was my fault, as I accidentally touched the SD while the DS was on (a backup of the files always comes in handy).
Great solution for people that want to experience a game that neither is fairly priced nor easy to find in the market at this point. Games shouldn't come with a "deadline" to access by the public for some years and then becoming a "collector's only" item gathering dust on a shelf.
Bought it last year ago and to be honest, it’s great! I’m a modder so I modded my 3DS xl and add a lot of homebrew-made stuff in it. In the cartridge, there’s a sd that you could import more files by via .nds files. Heck you could even install a full dsi menu with using twilight menu and play many emulators such as nes, snes, game boy, game boy color, game boy advance, sega Genesis, and TurboGrafx 16! If you import moonshell, you could literally put videos and photos and heck, even dsi ware if you wanted to. I love the cartridge and even tho it was cheaply made (which is still sturdy) it’s worth my 16$
Coming from a collector I have no issues with this flash carts and I own sum r4 carts myself. In my opinion it’s just an option for people, if you aren’t into collecting for genuine games but u just wanna play these games then these are a good option. Not to mention they r good for travelling as a ds lite is small to fit in ur pocket and then have one of these carts with a bunch of games on it
In case nobody else has mentioned. You can access the Ace3DS menu from a game by pressing: A, B, Down, L and R simultaneously
Looks cool. I haven't played my 3ds for a long while and "own" most of these for emulation, but I wouldn't mind having a cart version for posterity.... but 208 is oos atm.
I think emulation is fine for games that the companies are no longer selling/can't make a profit from. Like the Mario ds games weren't released else where to my knowledge so Nintendo have no way of profiting from your want to play that game.
Absolutely, I would say that the statute of limitations for emulation of games is about 7 or 8 years. Anything after that time is fair enough in my book.
You're not gonna win with that argument in court.
@@dogg-paws no court would waste their time with some dude who downloaded a few games that are decades old. Now someone who distributes roms online or the sellers of flashcarts they will gladly make an example of, but not some joe nobody. Worst case realistically they would moan to that dude's isp to issue an email threatening them. Actually collecting evidence and dragging every low level pirate to court is a massive waste of time and money for them, which is why there are so many high profile articles about them going after the source, rom distribution and hw/sw that defeats security.
I think there's a handful of DS games available on the Wii U eshop, right? While not exactly practical these days, that's still an official avenue to play some of them where the money goes to the creators.
@@qactustick the wii u eshop is gone isnt it
Don’t drink your water until after 1:35, I was not prepared for that comedy gold.
I've used a number of these cards over the years, because I don't care about the ethics of piracy. The biggest issue I have with these is sometimes the cards are made with poor manufacturing tolerances, causing them to have poor contact, but you can sometimes use a piece of paper to help it "press" against the contacts better. I don't know if it's my card or my 3DS (which is fairly old) but the cards I own have a tendency to lose connection, which causes the system to think it was ejected and completely turn off or quit without saving. So I've got my system soft-modded and run everything directly off the internal card. It's not 100% the same, it does cause problems with some games, but the majority work just fine.
(I'm sure Retro Future knows all this stuff, I'm mostly elaborating for others.)
These cards usually show up using the header of a legitimate game, such as Atlantis Squarepantis here, in order to work with an unmodified system. Firmware updates have included blacklists to block these cards in the past, and might even be a whitelist now that no more official NDS games are being made. If you have an older card that is now blocked, some of them can be updated, but you'll need an older system with older firmware to run the card and the updater program.
Once inside the menu, these cards almost always allow you to download a skin that lets you customize the appearance of the menu. These are generally made by the community and then collected by websites, and it might be difficult to find them due to their age, but there are also ways to create your own skins. I'm not artistic, so I never looked into it, so I don't know how easy/difficult it is. I just know it's possible.
As for saving, the card writes the save files to the SD card, so you can back them up to your computer, like if you're swapping out what games you have loaded. Each game is contained in an .nds file, and the AceKard/R4/etc card will write a .sav file to the card in the same folder and name as the .nds. Games can be arranged in folders if you choose, which can make organizing large lists like this a lot easier, since it seems the seller of this card didn't do that automatically. Most of the time, these cards don't come with games pre-loaded, because that usually draws more attention from the authorities than the card itself, but the .nds files can be found online and added to the card easily. So if one of these doesn't have a game you really want, it can be added.
Hardly piracy if Nintendo refuse to sell the fucking thing.
You're technically not getting the cartridge illegally if you paid for it, because then it's basically the same as buying multiple used DS games.
I have this... I modified it to have my own ds games.
Sure. We all use these for our own legit backups.
Hahahahahahahahaha
Aftermarket piracy is the only way I play games that haven't been remade or ported to newer consoles. I've sworn off using my NES and SNES consoles & games in fear of breaking them. Now my DS library should be safe for life. I'll likely save the files from this cart to my PC as backup 😅
IMO the best way to play DS games is to get a 2ds or 3ds, softmod it (you only need a PC) and install twlight menu. this way you can have all the functionality of a flashcart with the added bonus of luigis mansion 2
I have never played the generation five Pokémon games, and it is very hard to find any pre-owned copies that aren’t listed for outrageous prices… This may be a good way for me to finally experience those games :) Thank you!
Me neither. They were going for £50-70 on eBay too so I found out about 500 in 1 cartridges and bought one for just £10 😂
I actually have one of these and have been modifying it to my whims called a 482 in 1 was a ace3ds clone so i just erased everything except the roms and installed the original ace3ds on it and put my fave games on it including gbarunner and some crash bandicoot
EDIT: And oh yeah there are shortcuts to get back to the menu you can configure it by clicking on the settings button on the bottom left of the games menu
Fun fact: If nobody bought these flash carts, those $100 Pokemon games on eBay would be $400, and retro gaming would slip even further towards being exclusive to people with a lot of money on hand
I remember when I was in Afghanistan I found a multi-cart at a bazaar. There was no visible slot for a microSD card on it. But, if you popped the case open it was actually a DSTT. I cut a small hole in the case so I could access the roms and I got a flash cart cheaper in a “store” than I would have been able to find one online.
I found one of these things on eBay, probably one the best things I ever bought.
I remember getting scammed buying one of these when I was little. But I'm going to take another chance on this one! Definitely don't feel guilty about it either because I spent hundreds of euros on DS games back in the day...
I actually bought that exact cartridge and it’s unbelievable. I got one for the nes with almost 300 games on it, a snes one with 9000 (not a typo) on it and a n64 one with every release all 3 multicarts for less than $100. Thank you to whoever makes these now I can have a huge collection and display it without needing an entire extra room to do so.
I prefer using a hacked console because there's way more you can do with those but if somebody just wants to play games and doesn't want to risk bricking their console, then I'd say these carts are a good alternative.
It would be cool if Nintendo produced these, obviously they wouldn't do it for the ds/3ds, but if they did it for the switch they'd make a killing!
Yes, selling £1000s worth of software on a £12 flashcard would be very lucrative.
As if dude, theres a reason ROM sites get nuked dude. They'd rather make $20-$60 a game over $15 for all of it 🤷
If Nintendo sees this video, they're first reaction won't be "cool, we need to make something like that", it will be "lawyer! phone! stat!".
I think that would be sick. Like, if they made a “DS collection” cartridge for the switch with like the top 50 games or something.
Btw I meant that they load it with older games from specific systems, not switch stuff. Basically just a collection of older games depending on the cart.
These type of SD card multicarts usually come with a stripped down version of the ACE3DS software with basically one emulator . If you track down the full ACE3DS software package it has emulators to play Atari , Famicom , Gameboy , Mega Drive , PCEngine , Neo-Geo , SNES . I think the firmware is called "aos v2.13"
The way I see it , I have around 80 original DS games . I'm not going to take the chance of losing them , when I travel I bring a cheap ROM cart all-in-one instead .
Alternative title: Millennial discovers R4 card
All these cards with a red pcb 0:28 are *ACE3DS PLUS* clones and work with the wood kernel.
Some R4 cartridges have timebombs. Does this flash cartridge has also a timebomb?
Wait what?
I have an R4 and never heard of this...
@@Bane_Amesta It only affects some R4 models. If you can still use your R4 then that means your R4 isn’t affected. You have to update the firmware of your R4 or change the date of your DS to avoid the timebomb.
The R4 card in this video is an Ace3DS+ clone with no timebomb. It works well, but comes with a cheap SD card, so it's worth swapping out for a reliable one (especially if you care about your save files).
R4 cards with "SDHC" on the labels contain timebombs, so they stop working after a certain date. PSA: Although there are workarounds, it's better to not support anti-consumer practices, so I highly recommend staying away from them.
@@Bane_Amesta Don't worry, you're in no danger of exploding.
Just watched the video, and sent me off on a mind journey....
First my thought was that if you had previously owned the game back in the day then you technically still had the license to play it so no problem buying one of these carts,
That led me to remember the license agreement on all those old games which stated that you were buying a licence and it could not be resold... I then thought, "but they sell them all the time" and I considered maybe they can sell the carts,box,package etc, but according to the licencing they cant sell you the right to play it .
And I end up here.. just because you buy an original game, As far a piracy etc, are you any better ? I mean just because you pay hundreds for it, Nintendo are not getting paid a licence fee from that either.
disclaimer: not a lawyer, no opinion on ethics, just an interesting thought i had..
A lot of DS flashcarts, including this one, can actually be modified to boot a 3DS into software that installs custom firmware, similar to booting a PC from a USB drive, called "ntrboot". The 3DS's firmware signature check (which is unpatchable) has a well-known flaw, and ntrboot works by using an undocumented service boot function to get the system to load its firmware from a DS cartridge instead of internal ROM. So at least there is something 3DS-specific that it can do.
The one is the video can't, but the cart it was cloned from (Ace3DS+) can
Thank you so much for this video! I hopped on Amazon and ordered one right after this was over. Just the Dragon quest games on there had me sold! Thank you for sharing this with the world =).
Does ist really work ? It just sounds to good to be real
@@demir8765 It sure does :). You are right that it seems too good to be true, but it works great!
As a collector, I'm glad these exist because it means people aren't buying the original carts to play.
That’s actually something I’d never really considered, but I guess it does help people who want to own them physically as well. I recently bought a legit boxed copy of Chrono Trigger on DS. It sure as hell wasn’t cheap, but it would’ve been a damn sight more expensive if cards like this didn’t exist.
Piracy is the only reasonable way to experience old games without much fuss. Get over it, it's okay to play 20 year old roms. Nobody should care if it's ethical or not.
You're not gonna win with that argument in court. Lose the entitlement.
Nintendo won't take notes on that...
@Dany Henriquez that is just how reality works. If your game was cracked\dumped then it's there for anyone to use. And when talking about decade old roms it usually means original developer can't profit from it anyway so there is zero harm.
Found one in an Amazon Return bins type store for $7. It’s basically a store that buys boxes full of Amazon returned items, which then sells those items at bargain prices.
This made me dig out my old DS with a Supercard and R4 up it.
So many games, I had forgot, Ive spent the last 30mins playing Diddy Kong racing and im amped, Cheers for the reminder :)
Ha squarepanties should be the actual terminology GOLD
The DS game it displays as is for getting around lock-out, yeah. For example my "EDGE" Flash card appears as Sudoku by Hudsonsoft.
Alternative title: Millennial discovers R4 cartridge
hehehe
After i bought my first Nintendo DS, Eliot started to make a lot of DS videos. I love it lol
I have this exact game cart! The only difference is that I have modified it so that it is organized in a way that I can find the game I want even faster. (Really wish Ace let us modify the cart's UI, also, Ace's site is still stuck on its 2016 December holiday UI)
Edit: so, I wonder if we will get multicarts that are for the Switch
Edit: Go into settings, you can set up a command that lets you exit the game and enter the cartridge, I personally use L+R+A+B+V
(To enter settings, load slot 1 on the main menu, then hit start, it will show a little pop up menu, it should show settings, if you look around, you can find the process to set your command.)
I just discovered r4 cards a couple weeks ago, just got twilight menu set up on it, they are really fun
Piracy is based, but if you're going to pirate its better to just buy a r4 gold and load the roms yourself. Most of the time carts like this are timebombed, meaning they will shut down after a certain amount of time. Setting up an R4 gold cart with Twilightmenu+ is cheaper and will last much longer.
These things are pretty much pre loaded R4 cards, and that's awesome. I have an R4 gold with my own games on it. Great invention. Screw paying over 80$ for the Dragon quest games on DS, lol.
Emulation is ok as long as the devs don't suffer from it: Like, if the company does not exist anymore...or if the game is too old and unavailable on current hardware/online platform. Otherwise, I think we can all agree that we should support the people making the games that we love > It's a tough business and every $ matters (doesn't matter if it's a big or small company)...
Childhood coming out right now, soo much nostalgia!
Ace3ds is based off of the Wood R4 kernel and to soft reset the card try any of these button combos: L+R+A+B+X+Y, L+R+touch screen, Start+R+touch screen, L+R+A+B+Down, or L+R+B+Y+Down
I've bought it. games didnt work after a while or got corrupted, now theres only a few games left that work
I wouldnt waste the money
The piracy issue with vintage consoles has a shelf life. We are in one of the last generations of consoles with physical releases. Within most of our lifetimes, powerful expensive consoles will be a thing of the past. You will only need a device as powerful as a chromebook to play games, and you will only play them when they say you can.
not even joking, when your DS said 1:12 i looked at watch and literally watched it change from 1:11 to 1:12 lol
a better way of spending that money would be in a 8-32 Gb SD card and just CFW ur 3ds, u get homebrew apps custom themes and badges and all the roms u would want (imo its a better deal than a flash cart like that)
I grabbed a 520 in 1, took off all the junk games I didn't want, and love it. Works like a charm!
Press down L+R as well as A,B,X,Y at the same time to go back to the games screen
If you hold the abxy and L and R buttons all at once you can access the ace menu
My brothers both had one of these preloaded flashcarts with a sticker slapped on it and the people who filled it up used the smallest microSD, and filled it with as many (small) games as possible to pad the number, and most of them were garbage.
My oldest brother's one had built in (non removable) storage, the issue being you needed a special piece of hardware to add/delete games on it, and they had filled it up so much that after using it a bit, it ran out of room to store save data, and there was no way without the special flasher to clear up space to allow it to save. With a MicroSD of course that's no problem.
I bought one of these and whatever I load never stays past one day, highly recommend just buying an R4
I got one of these recently for just under £5, mainly for Professor Layton's professor and the last Specter, which included the mini game Professor Layton's London Life, which was removed in the UK version at the time. Level 5 didn't have the time to translate it to all five main EU languages before it's release date, so they just removed it.
This is an acekard (clone)! 😜 I bought one of these this year and replaced unwanted roms with my own selection. You can also swap microSD card for a bigger capacity and just copy or download system files, even put new skins or menus. It's better and cheaper solution than buying any other flashcart nowadays.
I bought one of these and was able to put my own rom collection on it and placed them all into folders alphabetically grouped :) so cheap and easy to do.
Ever since i was a kid i always wanted to get access to the old Gen 3 Pokemon Events like Lugia.mew and Deoxys. Last year i got an R4 and i was able to download the app for event distubition and complete my dream at the age of 25. For anyone that want to relive their memories an R4 will do the thing.