Hard EverDrivin'! Flash cartridges & ODEs

[Tegan]

I'm bummed that I can't take advantage. I've been wanting to buy an N64 Everdrive all year, but things keep coming up. I just bought a bunch of furniture this weekend.

 

[Kazin]

Received my Turbo Everdrive Pro in the mail today (super early birthday gift from my wife). It's an amazing product - though I'm glad I S-video modded my PC Engine with the Turbonanza mod, which also provides stereo audio out, which the Turbo Everdrive Pro can't do on its own. Playing Rondo of Blood on a CRT through S-video is an absolute delight. I wish I could take a picture that doesn't look like crap to share, so you'll just have to take my word for it - it's gorgeous. The Turbo CD/PC Engine CD is also a library I'm super unfamiliar with, too, so exploring it will be fun. Also having save states for HuCard games will be nice as well - maybe I'll finally play all the way through the Bonk games, for example.

Anyway, I've loaded my Turbo ED Pro up with the following CD games:

- Ai Chou Aniki
- Akumajou Dracula X - Chi No Rondo (English)
- Beyond Shadowgate
- Bonk III
- Cosmic Fantasy 2
- Double Dragon II - The Revenge
- Dragon Slayer - The Legend of Heroes
- Dungeon Explorer II
- Exile
- Exile - Wicked Phenomenon
- Faussete Amour
- Fighting Street
- Final Zone II
- Forgotten Worlds
- Gradius II - Gofer no Yabou
- Loom
- Lords of Thunder
- Madou Monogatari I - Honoo no Sotsuenji (English)
- Metamor Jupiter
- Meteor Blaster DX
- Might and Magic III - Isles of Terra
- Monster Lair
- Motteke Tamago (English)
- Nekketsu Koukou Dodgeball-bu CD
- Panic Bomber
- Prince of Persia
- R-Type Complete CD
- Space Invaders - The Original Game
- Star Parodier
- Super Air Zonk - Rockabilly Paradise
- Super Darius
- Super Darius II
- The Dynastic Hero
- Valis II
- Valis III
- Valis IV
- Xak III - The Eternal Recurrence (English)
- Ys Book I & II
- Ys III
- Ys IV (English)

Let me know if there's anything I'm missing, a lot of these I've never played before but I've either heard about elsewhere or were English patches that were easily available.

I've also ordered a PC Engine GT from Japan, no idea when that will get here, but I'm looking forward to modding and using that with the Turbo Everdrive Pro, too.

 

[ShakeWell]

While Lords is more unique, don't sleep on Gate of Thunder. Downtown Nekketsu Monogatari is a port of River City Ransom though it doesn't have any kind of English translation currently, so unless you've committed the NES version to memory, that might be a tough one.

I don't recall if this device supports Arcade Card games, but if so, Sapphire is a very visually impressive game. It became this legendary thing, so I think a lot of people thought it was a better game than it is, but it's certainly a solid shooter. Also, I've talked about Fatal Fury Special, but it's frankly a ridiculously impressive port. Absolutely dog-walks the Sega CD version.

Finally, get Fighting Street off that thing. It means to do you harm.

 

[Kazin]

I always wanted to try Fighting Street, I never have haha. I'll probably just boot it once.

I think it supports Arcade Card games, so I'll download Sapphire, though I think I do have Gate of Thunder on there already (it's a HuCard game, right?). I think the only thing this card can't do is Supergrafx without actual Supergrafx hardware, which I don't have (and don't plan on getting. I'll emulate those games if I want to play them - the Supergrafx is hideous looking lol).

 

[ArugulaZ]

Don't forget! There are many guys like you all over the world!

 

[ShakeWell]

I always wanted to try Fighting Street, I never have haha. I'll probably just boot it once.

I think it supports Arcade Card games, so I'll download Sapphire, though I think I do have Gate of Thunder on there already (it's a HuCard game, right?). I think the only thing this card can't do is Supergrafx without actual Supergrafx hardware, which I don't have (and don't plan on getting. I'll emulate those games if I want to play them - the Supergrafx is hideous looking lol).

No, Gate of Thunder is a CD game, in the US it was a pack in with Bonk 1 & 2 and Bomberman on the same CD.

 

[Sarge]

Yep, I'll second Gate of Thunder - if you dig Thunder Force, you'll dig this.

 

[Kazin]

Heads up for anyone considering using an Everdrive to complete the various gen 3/4 Pokedexs - the EZ Flash Omega Definitive Edition allows you to flash a game to NOR memory (dunno what that stands for), which makes the device you're playing the game on think whatever game is loaded into that slot is a real cartridge. Meaning, for example, you can transfer Pokemon from GBA to DS without having to pay the exorbitant prices the GBA games cost these days (the EZ Flash Omega Definitive Edition cost me ~$79 from Amazon, for example, which is less than the cost of Fire Red/Leaf Green which go for $90-$100, much less Emerald which goes for freaking $200 loose these days). Sadly, the Krikzz-made GBA Everdrives don't do this.

...Meaning, I now have an extra GBA Everdrive X5 Mini if anyone would like to buy one from me lol

 

[Sarge]

Fun, sounds like the EverDrives trip the anti-piracy measures.

NOR memory is a type of flash memory, so when you flash it, it looks just like a ROM chip as far as the system is concerned. I have an old FlashAdvance 256M Pro that is NOR-only, and I suspect the old EZ Flash 3-in-1 carts would also work for this purpose.

 

[Kazin]

@Sarge Well, I don't think the Everdrive carts have a way to tell Pokemon Pearl or whatever which game to load, so it just acts like no GBA game is there. The Everdrive itself loads up fine on a DS, but you still have to select the game you want to play from the menu.

 

[Sarge]

Ohhhhhh... I think I get it now. So the DS version is literally accessing the cart while it's not running? Now it makes sense why the EverDrive wouldn't work. For some reason I thought it would be some sort of link-cable deal.

 

[muteKi]

Same things with the 3-in-1 cartridge; the way the NOR is mapped, as I recall, does not appear to be where the Pokemon, etc. games would otherwise expect it, so they don't actually identify it as such. That said, I have not checked this myself to say for certain.

 

[Sarge]

Interesting. Now I'm very curious to play around with mine and see what happens.

 

[Kazin]

I think the best thing about the EZ Flash Omega Definitive Edition is that Pokemon transfers to the DS games aren't permanent so long as I back up my save before I transfer them. Just tested it to make sure and it worked.

I have legit copies of HeartGold, Platinum, Black, Black 2, and a DS flash cart, so after I play through all these games and complete the Pokedexs at least once each gen, I can move everything from my GBA flash carts all the way up to Pokemon Home on Switch (and if I understand things correctly, I should be able to back up/restore my legit DS cart saves on my hacked 3DS with a save backup tool, meaning even those transfers shouldn't be permanent).