Jan

Supercard DS One for Nintendo DS

Written by Neil Galloway

I just received my Supercard DS One the other day and I have to say I am quite disappointed. However, it was my own fault for not researching it more.

I ordered it from GamerSection.ca. These guys have been awesome. They were easy to get a hold of (email,phone,MSN,Yahoo) when I did have my problems and quick to exchange and fix my DSOne. Also, if you are looking to avoid taxes and import duties because you live in Canada, these guys are located here in Quebec.

Disclaimer

I will be talking about the SuperCard which can and is used to play pirated games. It is also used to play homebrew applications including games, mp3's, videos, books, organizers, picture viewers, and the list goes on. This is up to you to use at your own risk. I support the video game industry half-heartedly. I do buy games, but I do download them as well. I am more interested in having a full-featured handheld so that is why I purchased a SuperCard for myself.

Now about the card itself.

No Gameboy Advance Games and Just Plain Less Compatible

So I ordered it because it is the latest version of the card. It is a Slot-1 solution. This means that you get one DS Cart sized card that slides into the top slot of your DS. There is a little spot to slide a microSD card into the SuperCard that stores all your data.

I thought this would be awesome, because then I wouldn't need the FlashCart for Slot-2 (which costs more), the Gameboy Advance slot on the bottom of the NDS. But I found out that Gameboy Advance games will currently only load from that slot. So now I can't play GBA games. Then I found out that some homebrew applications also work this way as does the Opera Web Browser (which you can't buy in North America). So none of them will load from the DS One.

There doesn't look like anyone is developing hacks or fixes to this yet either, so if you buy a DSOne or any other Slot-1 solution, be prepared to not play GBA games, use the Opera browser, and have less compatibility with some homebrew applications.

I can't guarantee this, but I wasn't able to get any emulators running on my DSOne either. I know they work on the Slot-2 solutions, but there is no information on running them from Slot-1 yet. This is for playing SNES, Genesis, and other classic system games. I imagine there will be development to fix this in the near future though.

I know, I know. Who plays GBA stuff anymore anyways? Well I do. I like a few of the classics. There still isn't an EA Sports hockey game for the NDS yet, so NHL 2002 for GBA is the only one available. All the classic Mario games are on the GBA, plus some of my favourites (Ghouls'n'Ghosts, Street Fighter, Metroid,Tony Hawk,etc). There are lot of GBA games I wanted to try that you can't even buy anymore as well. You can still find them online in GBA rom collections or on eBay. Ghouls'n'Ghosts and NHL 2002 are two that I was never able to find in the stores here (how is there not a copy of NHL 2002 in a store in Calgary???).

Flaky???

When I first got the card, I loaded it up with some Nintendo DS games and the basic firmware provided on the Supercard site. Pretty soon I was playing games and such, but I did notice they would freeze periodically. I would have to reboot the system to fix it. This was a minor annoyance and then became more and more frequent.

Then I started to notice that it wouldn't boot into the SuperCard screen when I would start the DS. This is how you access the software on the flash card in the first place. It would boot straight into the Nintendo DS's main screen and I couldn't do anything.

Overall it was very frustrating, so I returned it.

Exchanging It

GamersSection.ca has been awesome about it. They let me ship it back to them regular post ($1.00 for shipping) first of all. They tested it and kept me up to date on the process the whole time. Then they let me choose to exchange it for something else or replace it with the same thing. So now I have a Supercard Lite and Superkey on order. It is an older version, but still costs a bit more (around $20 more than the DSOne).

Beware as well. I was told the Supercard Lite Rumble does not run GBA games either.

Summary

I would not recommend the DSOne to anyone. It was flaky (which other people have complained about I have since realized) and is far less compatible. At the time of this article, this is the case. This might change and you might want to look at it then.

If you just want to play DS Games and DS homebrew that doesn't require a Slot-2 flashcart, then go ahead and buy it, because it is cheaper than the alternatives, but if you notice any freeze-ups, exchange it right away.

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Category: NintendoDS

3 Comments

seamonkey420 Says:
2007-03-14 07:37:29
wassup.. yup, i had the same probs as you, except i wasn't even able to get a rom to load.

i am still awaiting my RMA (seems that the last 33% of dsone carts were plagued w/memory problems/manufacturing defect. hopefully once these problems are fixed i

Ganon Says:
2008-01-12 12:59:00
You say you care about GBA games? So do I. That's why I bought the M3 DS Real, an easy slot 1 card that uses slot 2 expansions for Oprah, GBA, and rumble. compatibility is almost 100%, for NDS, GBA, and homebrew. It comes with built in emulators to play your old favorites on DS too. Best card out there, pick one out at www.kickgaming.com, based in Ontario (Sorry if I sound like an ad)

dayna Says:
2009-06-12 20:04:29
my ds one card was awesome i loved it but then it wont work and ive had it for 3 months and i have no idea what to do?