The card has a shiny sticker and a bright yellow plastic shell
Introduction
The original R4 team shut down in 2008, however many companies have since been producing flashcards under their name due to their high reputation all those years ago; the team behind this card are no exception, this card is a clone.
Features
- Support for both Micro SD and Micro SDHC cards,
- Action Replay Cheat Code support,
- Soft Reset,
- Rumble Pak support,
- Supports EZ Flash 3-in-1,
- Uses standard .sav method of saving games (can exchange saves between different flashcards),
Firmware and Support
The card supports all models of the original DS and DS lite, as well as up to DSi firmware version 1.43 and up to 3DS firmware version 3.0. The latest firmware for the card was released in 2011 as the team have moved onto making a successor, the R4i Yes. The website itself has had broken download links for over a year now however, fortunately the card is also compatible with the R4i Advance firmware.
The firmware itself includes a variety of nifty features, though nothing particularly new or unusual. An unexpected feature that is not advertised is that you can load GBA ROMs through an EZ Flash-3-in-1 Plus (or alternative) straight from the firmware without having to run Rudolph's GBA ExpLoader tool.
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Hardware
The plastic shell has exactly the same design as the R4iSDHC card and many other modern R4 clones.
The plastic feels of decent quality and is of a reasonable thickness; the card has a non-spring loaded micro SD slot which holds it firmly in place. It's design is slightly different to that of an official game card however it goes in and out of a DS lite and 3DS without an issue and doesn't feel lose or wobbly while inserted. It's also worth pointing out that the card is slightly longer than an official card and so it is ideal for old DSes which have developed contact issues.
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ROM Compatibility
As mentioned earlier, the firmware has not been updated for several years and thus is lacking in compatibility with recent games although early games work fine without any slowdown, save problems or multiplayer issues.
FIFA 08 - PASS!
Mario Kart DS - PASS!
Pictocross DS - PASS!
Professor Layton - PASS!
Worms 2 - PASS!
Megaman ZX Advent - PASS!
My Frogger Toy Trials - PASS!
Yoshi's Island DS - PASS!
Super Mario 64 DS - PASS!
Pokemon Platinum - PASS!
Pokemon White - FAIL (hangs at ironic white screen).
Pokemon Black - FAIL (also hangs at white screen).
I also tested several homebrews:
Win2DS - PASS!
Moonshell - PASS!
Flashme - PASS!
Conclusion
The card is a cheap way of playing some homebrew and early ROMs if you are on a suitable firmware, however it is no longer distributed so it can be difficult to find. It has very standard features which almost all other flashcards these days include. It is essentially just an obsolete R4 clone. There are similarly priced, more modern alternatives.
4 / 10
Update
Since I have no need for another low compatibility flashcard, I decided to turn it into a dedicated Pacman homebrew card!
Excuse the quality, I used my 3DS to take the picture.
I tried to print a neat label with the text being centered but Microsoft Word was just like, "LOL, NO!" and cut off the n. Using tiny nail scissors to cut the label didn't help either... Oh well, at least I have learnt for next time.
I created a custom kernel so that the card would boot straight into the game without having to select it through the flashcard menu, and it works extremely well!
The Pacman game which I used was made by Cilein, it plays well and has interesting pseudo 3D graphics.
