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DaleCooper

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,852
I think I got one somewhere. Only ever had 3DS, but don't know if it works with that? Could probably contain some games...
 

MadMike

Member
Oct 27, 2017
3,433
Didn't have one back in the day, but I bought an R4 card a year or so ago, along with an EZFlash Omega for my GBA.
 

B. Spaceman

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
2,296
Spain
I had one, yes. It no longer works so I want to get a new one. There are games that are impossible to get physical, you know? Try to buy Order of Ecclesia if you can lol. I still have a ton of original DS games
 
Nov 13, 2017
9,537
Nintendo's lawyers going through this thread

RashAmusedAtlasmoth-size_restricted.gif
 

Auberji

Member
Oct 25, 2017
685
First one I ever owned thinking back was a Supercard SD and the Superkey jumper cart that was required to boot to slot 2. I used to love that stuff growing up. I remember these huge elaborate carts that used to hang off the back of original models before they started shrinking down, and eventually they became one slot carts.

Got a couple of friends into it, they picked up M3 carts and stuff.

I've got nostalgia for all this growing up as a kid who could never get his parents to buy him any new games, then badgering my Dad into buying the Supercard off a dodgy looking very likely now defunct Chinese website. That took two months to ship.
 
Oct 25, 2017
4,801
New York City
I had one, yes. It no longer works so I want to get a new one. There are games that are impossible to get physical, you know? Try to buy Order of Ecclesia if you can lol. I still have a ton of original DS games
Order of Ecclesia doesn't seem too high in price, from a quick eBay search. It's around $15 for just the authentic cartridge.

It's no Pokemon Heart Gold, where authentic cartridges regularly sell on eBay for $40+. (And with the case, it's about $100...)
 

Wil Grieve

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,077
I have an R4 in my 3DS that I use for DS games. Of course now with TwiLightMenu it's obsolete, but it's still in there.
 

night814

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 29, 2017
15,040
Pennsylvania
I had several different versions and upgrades. I quite liked them and they were great for using cheats and save editors.
 

Whitemex

Member
Oct 27, 2017
15,460
Chicago
Late in the life cycle. I think I only had it for 3 months before I sold it and got a 3ds. I really only played around with Korg and some Pokemon games with cheats for fun
 

red_shift_ltd

Member
May 24, 2019
751
US
I owned one, downloaded hundreds of games and barely played any of them.

Since then, I always buy my games and I enjoy it way more.

It was great for niche titles that weren't in the US and cost way too much to import (Ouendan, Taiko, Korg synth) but that's not a problem in the current gen. It cheapened games on the DS for me though. On the other hand, the DS is still my favorite portable platform, maybe because I was able to play a bit of everything.

I still have both the R4 and my old DS and use them occasionally so... I guess it's complicated?
 

SimonSimon

Alt Account
Member
Mar 26, 2020
658
Once I got an R4, I stopped buying NDS games and pirated all of them. Apparently a lot of other people did the same, as it put a huge dent in game sales. Since then, I've stopped pirating games.
 

Shoe

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
4,184
Yeah, got it for Ace Attorney Investigations 2 English translation
 

LordHuffnPuff

Doctor Videogames at Allfather Productions
Verified
Oct 25, 2017
2,321
webernet
Yes, because it was a super cheap way to back up the saves from my GBA titles in case of battery failure. I'm sure other folks use them for less legitimate purposes.
 

R0987

Avenger
Jan 20, 2018
2,837
They were so common here in the NL that Nintendo went to court and managed to get them banned from being sold here.
 

B. Spaceman

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 29, 2017
2,296
Spain
Order of Ecclesia doesn't seem too high in price, from a quick eBay search. It's around $15 for just the authentic cartridge.

It's no Pokemon Heart Gold, where authentic cartridges regularly sell on eBay for $40+. (And with the case, it's about $100...)

In Spain the cheapest I've seen it is like 100€. And I'm not paying that for any game
 

Instro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
15,014
Yes, the scene around that stuff was pretty immense. Buying a physical card to turn your DS into a wide open homebrew machine was a pretty cool thing. Ridiculously easy and allowed you to do all sorts of neat stuff, beyond the obvious.

Honestly I feel like it was kind of a necessity considering the number of games that were not brought west, or in Last Window's case inexplicably not released to all regions.
 

Saoshyant

Member
Oct 25, 2017
1,996
Portugal
Hello Nintendo Ninja Lawyers!

I actually had one, a DS TT, but I reckon it's the same thing. Got it because back then there was this craze about brain training games and I liked to rotate between them during my train commute. The 3DS had a digital shop, but the old DS had no such a thing, so this was the only way I could brain train like a pro without taking with me a bunch of carts. I'm not joking: I still have all those games. Did you know Nintendo released three, Sega two, and Ubisoft one (through GameLoft)? And there was also this Sight Training one which I also enjoyed. And there were a bunch of others of even more dubious quality.

Anyway, this was a DS Lite, and then two years later the thing that eventually happens with all DS Lites came knocking: the bad hinge caused damage, actually tearing up a cable that connected the top screen from the motherboard and I didn't know how to repair it.

Bought a DSi XL to replace it, lovely color, lovely matte finish, but it didn't work with the flashcart so, welp, that was it. Never bothered much again with the brain training games. The other thing I played on the DS was usually RPGs so without a way to have my whole library on hand, I just focused on a game at a time like a schmuck.
 

TheChrisGlass

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,606
Los Angeles, CA
I had one, but I can't use it. The way it's designed, it just constantly eats your battery on the device as long as it's plugged in. It scares me to have those inserted. Their own internal chip never stops drawing power.
 
Nov 6, 2017
279
Yeah, bought it in Akihabara before Nintendo put a stop to all of that.
I suspect that given Japan's reputation the majority of the board would be surprised at just how ubiquitous they were in Akiba for a while, seems like all the people who used to sell cable descramblers switched to them - I bought one there because I wanted to play that Bioware Sonic game and no import stores stocked it.
 

Rae

Member
Mar 7, 2019
997
Yes, it was one of the few items I bought on my own lol. I still bought DSL games though and sold them later one when I got bored of it.

Damn, LE Nintendo games tend to hold their value well years later.
 

inner-G

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
14,473
PNW
Yep, and before that had the Supercard Lite (it had 2 parts, one went in the GBA slot and held a micro SD, and it also had some some of boot cartridge that went in the DS slot, and that let it load DS games from the SD card in the GBA slot. It would also load GBA roms)

Still have them kicking around somewhere
 

FuzzyAssassin

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
630
First one I ever owned thinking back was a Supercard SD and the Superkey jumper cart that was required to boot to slot 2. I used to love that stuff growing up. I remember these huge elaborate carts that used to hang off the back of original models before they started shrinking down, and eventually they became one slot carts.

Got a couple of friends into it, they picked up M3 carts and stuff.

I've got nostalgia for all this growing up as a kid who could never get his parents to buy him any new games, then badgering my Dad into buying the Supercard off a dodgy looking very likely now defunct Chinese website. That took two months to ship.
This is almost exactly my story. I started with a Supercard SD for GBA games, then upgraded to a Superpass to boot DS games from the Supercard. That required a legit DS cart and had to be programmed for that specific cart using a PC's parallel port and a programming device. That was eventually shrunk down to just a regular-sized DS cart. I later replaced that with a CycloDS, at the time the best flash cart since it had high compatibility and didn't require the games to be patched. I ended up using an Acekard 2i after the DSi released. I believe I still have all of these little gadgets stored somewhere.

It's always been handy to have all my games with me on handhelds and being able to backup game saves.
 

SolVanderlyn

I love pineapple on pizza!
Member
Oct 28, 2017
13,509
Earth, 21st Century
I had a G6 cart that I bought for some crazy expensive price. I used it for a while, especially to do things like play Fire Emblem 6 in English. I ended up giving it to my poor friend who loved video games because his life was shitty and he deserved something nice for once.

That sounds like a very nice thing to do but, you know, flash carts are morally dubious to begin with. So was I a digital Robin Hood of sorts? I guess.
 
Sep 14, 2019
3,030
Yup. I played some of the stuff people would make.

There was an impressive demo of a 3D game, but other than that, a lot of the stuff was broken.

I ended up just using it as an MP3 player.
 

Deleted member 4532

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
5,936
Yeah, I did have an R4 and an Acekard when the former kept corrupting my save data. I didn't have money when I was younger, so I did pirate a bit. I used to play Pokémon games in Japanese before I got the games for my birthday (the English releases used to always release around my birthday). Good times.

TO ALL THE FBI AGENTS WATCHING MY ACCOUNT RIGHT NOW, THIS IS A PARODY POST. ALL MY POSTS ARE JOKES. DO NOT ARREST ME FOR PARODIES.
 

Deadpool_X

Member
Oct 28, 2017
2,104
Indiana
I had one, but I actually only used it as a demo style system. I would play games I was unsure of for a little bit to see if I liked them. If I did, I purchased the games. I only kept games I owned on the R4 permanently, as well as NES and GB games for emulation.
 

Bigkrev

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,322
I don't think I owned a R4 until years after the DS was dead, but I owned just about every other brand of card in that era (M3, Supercard, Acekard, etc)
 

ultraluna

Member
Jun 3, 2020
1,902
I don't think you could even buy a DS here without one. When I bought my 3DS it came with one as well but it didn't work so I never used.
 
Oct 27, 2017
5,618
Spain
Well, as a kid I didn't own an R4... Because I owned a competitor called M3 DS Real. At some point everyone did, and not doing so was considered uncool or loser-like. Nowadays it's obviously a different story with how difficult piracy is and the many pricing schemes there are.
 

PlayBee

One Winged Slayer
Member
Nov 8, 2017
5,541
Not sure what you mean, since they wouldn't be physical but rather digital. Works fine for me
Something about a ripped physical game not working the same as an eshop release, or maybe it was DS ROMs not working on the SD card vs a flashcart. But like I said, I might have been mistaken.
 
Nov 14, 2017
4,928
As others have said, there were everywhere in the UK. I didn't know anyone who had a DS without one, including some older / middle aged ladies I worked with.
 

HOUSEJoseph

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,320
Why have I never thought of this? I have all my DS games backed up (I own a ton of physical DS games), I own all my 3DS games digital, and I've known about R4. I might need to look into this. A fully on demand DS/3DS handheld.