Having trouble activating Action Replay codes for Mega Man Battle Network 5: Double Team

[Weltock]

I'm trying to get 1) SolCross and 2) BassCross, which are gotten in the game naturally (but inconveniently) by 1) having a cartridge of the game in the GBA slot of the DS Lite, and 2) having a cartridge of the game that has a specific completion icon on it. Lacking those requirements, I instead just want to use Action Replay to make the MMBN5: Double Team files believe that those cartridges are in the GBA slot so they will be unlocked in the game.

I have the codes for this already:

::Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django
52000FC4 E1A00004
02000FC4 E3A0000A
D2000000 00000000
5202CD5C 0000BDC0
1202CD52 00002001
0202CD5C BDC22001
D2000000 00000000

::MegaMan Battle Network 5: Team Colonel
52000FC4 E1A00004
02000FC4 E3A00008
D2000000 00000000
5202CD5C 0000BDC0
1202CD52 00002001
0202CD5C BDC22001
D2000000 00000000

::MegaMan Battle Network 5: Team ProtoMan
52000FC4 E1A00004
02000FC4 E3A00007
D2000000 00000000
5202CD5C 0000BDC0
1202CD52 00002001
0202CD5C BDC22001
D2000000 00000000

...Unfortunately, they don't do anything, even though other users where I found it attest to the codes' validity.

Can anyone tell me what might be going wrong? I've gotten official codes to work on the game as an experiment, but no fan-made codes seem to work. Is there some secret button combination that needs to be pressed.

Thanks for your consideration. Any help is appreciated.

 

[JuanMena]

Can anyone tell me what might be going wrong?

Most likely, the emulator you're using does not support cheats. Simple as that.

Second possibility, the codes are wrong.

 

[Weltock]

Most likely, the emulator you're using does not support cheats. Simple as that.

Second possibility, the codes are wrong.

Thank you for your response!

I'm actually using a DS Lite.

I don't know whether or not the codes are wrong, but it does seem like I'm doing something wrong when no other fan-made codes seem to work. Only the official Datel ones seem to work.

 

[JuanMena]

Thank you for your response!

I'm actually using a DS Lite.

I don't know whether or not the codes are wrong, but it does seem like I'm doing something wrong when no other fan-made codes seem to work. Only the official Datel ones seem to work.

Ah, really? What card are you using?

 

[JuanMena]

Oh, I see... wasn't aware of that device.

Welp... get a flashcard!

 

[Weltock]

Oh, I see... wasn't aware of that device.

Welp... get a flashcard!

Hmm. I'm not really sure what that is or how it would work. But I'll look into it if I can't get the Action Replay working.

I'm wondering if there's some button I need to hold down as the game is loading? Some places have said that's sometimes necessary.

 

[FAST6191]

Heh. Missed that such codes were made -- remember talking about it a few years ago.

Anyway usual reasons for codes not working.

1) Encryption. For various reasons some flash cart and cheat makers encrypt cheats. Does not look like the case here though.

2) Did not activate/appear for your game. Some cheat engines will want serials or whatnot to appear first for the cheats to even show up for the game, other emulators might give you the option to turn them off or turn them on. If this happened after the check was done (and it might be early during boot of the game -- not like you insert GBA carts during the game) then yeah.

3) Wrong game. PAL cheats don't necessarily work on NTSC and ones made for v1.0 versions of the game probably won't work for DS games at least (more likely for older stuff that was not compiled but still unsurprising if a failure happens) for v1.1.
To the best of my knowledge (and a casual search of http://www.advanscene.com/ , though it uses v01 v02... for 1.0 1.1 and such like) there are only the NA, EU and JP releases of this game and no redumps, rereleases or such like (and it is even old enough that we should not have to suffer the pointless redump problem some later games see).

As far as button combos those tend to be reserved for other things
Still we can check this
https://doc.kodewerx.org/hacking_nds.html
http://problemkaputt.de/gbatek.htm#dsmemorymaps
::Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django
52000FC4 E1A00004
02000FC4 E3A0000A
D2000000 00000000
5202CD5C 0000BDC0
1202CD52 00002001
0202CD5C BDC22001
D2000000 00000000

Type 0x05 Equal To 5XXXXXXX YYYYYYYY

Checks if YYYYYYYY == (word at [XXXXXXX]). If not, the code(s) following this one are not executed (ie. execution status is set to false) until a code type D0 or D2 is encountered, or until the end of the code list is reached.

Checks if that area is equal to the value listed.

Type 0x00 32-bit 0XXXXXXX YYYYYYYY

Writes word YYYYYYYY to [XXXXXXX+offset].

Writes a 32 bit value to that area (same location as the check) if so.
D2 is a terminator (so it does not run forever) and unmodified in this case.

2000FC4 is slap bang in the... almost start actually of main memory. Without checking I doubt it is in the main code area either to make this an overlay/assembly tweak.
Either way not likely controls which tend* to key off
http://problemkaputt.de/gbatek.htm#dskeypad
*if the cheats were good they might use a debounced area but it would be a first.

Another check and another write, albeit 16 bit and 32 bits to another area in memory and an area a bit later than the check.
This could be in the binary area of RAM ( https://no-intro.org/tools.htm NDSTS should tell you where the binary lands in memory if you wanted).

All the other cheats follow the same formula with only the smaller/first loop changing between them which is presumably the identifier (numbers counting up and down by small increments like that is fairly common for that sort of thing**, also possibly makes the mega unlock everything hack some proposed harder but different discussion). The latter part though has me curious. Most likely it is just a cart is present trip or something but I will note it.

**fiddling with them is also how people discover hidden secrets (normally for things like bonus weapons, play as boss cheats, hidden pokemon and such like but same principle happily applies here). Seeing the mega list of possible games and conditionals for this game https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ds/928331-mega-man-battle-network-5-double-team/cheats I am not sure what else makes sense but who knows, and depending upon what happens you might even unlock some cut content if they expected an earlier check to stop it from ever getting to this point.

If your emulator is not playing nice then you can hardpatch DS cheats into games. DSATM is what most would use to do it https://gbatemp.net/download/dsatm.31528/

 

[Weltock]

Heh. Missed that such codes were made -- remember talking about it a few years ago.

Anyway usual reasons for codes not working.

1) Encryption. For various reasons some flash cart and cheat makers encrypt cheats. Does not look like the case here though.

2) Did not activate/appear for your game. Some cheat engines will want serials or whatnot to appear first for the cheats to even show up for the game, other emulators might give you the option to turn them off or turn them on. If this happened after the check was done (and it might be early during boot of the game -- not like you insert GBA carts during the game) then yeah.

3) Wrong game. PAL cheats don't necessarily work on NTSC and ones made for v1.0 versions of the game probably won't work for DS games at least (more likely for older stuff that was not compiled but still unsurprising if a failure happens) for v1.1.
To the best of my knowledge (and a casual search of http://www.advanscene.com/ , though it uses v01 v02... for 1.0 1.1 and such like) there are only the NA, EU and JP releases of this game and no redumps, rereleases or such like (and it is even old enough that we should not have to suffer the pointless redump problem some later games see).

As far as button combos those tend to be reserved for other things
Still we can check this
https://doc.kodewerx.org/hacking_nds.html
http://problemkaputt.de/gbatek.htm#dsmemorymaps
::Boktai 2: Solar Boy Django
52000FC4 E1A00004
02000FC4 E3A0000A
D2000000 00000000
5202CD5C 0000BDC0
1202CD52 00002001
0202CD5C BDC22001
D2000000 00000000

Type 0x05 Equal To 5XXXXXXX YYYYYYYY

Checks if YYYYYYYY == (word at [XXXXXXX]). If not, the code(s) following this one are not executed (ie. execution status is set to false) until a code type D0 or D2 is encountered, or until the end of the code list is reached.

Checks if that area is equal to the value listed.

Type 0x00 32-bit 0XXXXXXX YYYYYYYY

Writes word YYYYYYYY to [XXXXXXX+offset].

Writes a 32 bit value to that area (same location as the check) if so.
D2 is a terminator (so it does not run forever) and unmodified in this case.

2000FC4 is slap bang in the... almost start actually of main memory. Without checking I doubt it is in the main code area either to make this an overlay/assembly tweak.
Either way not likely controls which tend* to key off
http://problemkaputt.de/gbatek.htm#dskeypad
*if the cheats were good they might use a debounced area but it would be a first.

Another check and another write, albeit 16 bit and 32 bits to another area in memory and an area a bit later than the check.
This could be in the binary area of RAM ( https://no-intro.org/tools.htm NDSTS should tell you where the binary lands in memory if you wanted).

All the other cheats follow the same formula with only the smaller/first loop changing between them which is presumably the identifier (numbers counting up and down by small increments like that is fairly common for that sort of thing**, also possibly makes the mega unlock everything hack some proposed harder but different discussion). The latter part though has me curious. Most likely it is just a cart is present trip or something but I will note it.

**fiddling with them is also how people discover hidden secrets (normally for things like bonus weapons, play as boss cheats, hidden pokemon and such like but same principle happily applies here). Seeing the mega list of possible games and conditionals for this game https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ds/928331-mega-man-battle-network-5-double-team/cheats I am not sure what else makes sense but who knows, and depending upon what happens you might even unlock some cut content if they expected an earlier check to stop it from ever getting to this point.

If your emulator is not playing nice then you can hardpatch DS cheats into games. DSATM is what most would use to do it https://gbatemp.net/download/dsatm.31528/

Thanks for this amazing writeup! Sorry I didn't respond sooner.

What confuses me is that a lot of codes don't show up, although the "official" Datel codes do work. (Like insta-filling custom gauge.) So the AR does work, it's just that no fan-made code --- the Django one or any other one --- works.