# EZFlash Omega Definitive Edition (GBA flash cart) in house at GBAtemp



## raxadian (Jan 31, 2021)

Do cheats work on it?


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## Shadow#1 (Jan 31, 2021)

raxadian said:


> Do cheats work on it?


Same as the original does


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## raxadian (Jan 31, 2021)

Shadow#1 said:


> Same as the original does



Good cause the Jr model doesn't support cheats, you have to edit saves on your PC instead and that's complicated.


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## hippy dave (Jan 31, 2021)

Not sure I can easily justify the upgrade from the original Omega, which has been working for me no problem, but this has some nice features.

Interesting DS skin you're rocking there.


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## lokomelo (Jan 31, 2021)

Are there a DS shell like the current omega?

(Looking at the pictures it seems unlikely, but I asked to be sure)


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## Shadow#1 (Jan 31, 2021)

lokomelo said:


> Are there a DS shell like the current omega?
> 
> (Looking at the pictures it seems unlikely, but I asked to be sure)


It's GBA sized maybe in the future they will sell colored shells


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## FAST6191 (Jan 31, 2021)

Forgot to mention. Had several thousand files on the SD card at one point courtesy of the images and cheat folder. Still seemed to be fine, though did not put more than about 200 in any one directory.

It has onboard cheat support, and the EZTeam provided a cheat database to play with on their site (takes quite a while to extract directly to SD card as each game has its own file for English and Chinese). I have not got anything here right now that will be one of those cheat engine breaker type tests (start adding a whole bunch of really exotic codes and it can make a basic flash cart or emulator engine fall over where a nicer one/hardware cheat devices might not -- https://gamehacking.org/wiki/Hacking_Game_Boy_Advance ) but as a general concept it is there.



hippy dave said:


> Not sure I can easily justify the upgrade from the original Omega, which has been working for me no problem, but this has some nice features.
> 
> Interesting DS skin you're rocking there.


Yeah I am not entirely sure what the market is for this one. That said I am mostly interested in playing games and not much else, and that was largely sorted before the GBA was finished (certainly a few months into the DS lifetime). I am glad there is fanciness but most extras I tend to want tend to be ROM hacks which tend to also work fine otherwise.

As far as the skin. One of my finer car boot purchases the other year
https://gbatemp.net/threads/things-you-recently-bought-or-got.347639/page-555#post-8770940


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## Asia81 (Jan 31, 2021)

Can we speak about the DS skin (Hannah Montana ?)


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## coolcool9990 (Jan 31, 2021)

If this works for ds-gba link, any chance it will also work for linking to the gamecube Pokemon games?


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## Shadow#1 (Jan 31, 2021)

coolcool9990 said:


> If this works for ds-gba link, any chance it will also work for linking to the gamecube Pokemon games?


Test that and report back


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## FAST6191 (Jan 31, 2021)

Asia81 said:


> Can we speak about the DS skin (Hannah Montana ?)


It is High School Musical actually. Also we already did earlier, https://gbatemp.net/threads/things-you-recently-bought-or-got.347639/page-555#post-8770940 being where I got it.



coolcool9990 said:


> If this works for ds-gba link, any chance it will also work for linking to the gamecube Pokemon games?



If it emulates the save in a manner it expects (and I imagine if it works for the DS-GBA, though I have yet to test it, it should for this).
I don't have pokemon colosseum or a modded gamecube though and I am not paying £30 for the former (indeed I would be reluctant to waste a miniDVD from the pile on pokemon). If a software modded Wii (haven't looked inside my Wii, nor modded it for that matter, but I would be surprised if it was compatible with any of my Wii mod chips I have around here as it was on the newer end) could be persuaded to run it then I might be able to test it.


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## Jayro (Jan 31, 2021)

What is the A/B switch used for?


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## FAST6191 (Jan 31, 2021)

Jayro said:


> What is the A/B switch used for?


The FAQ has a bit more but generally

Mode A = your classic menu driven GBA flash cart mode. What most will spend 99.99% of the time using.
Mode B = the first ROM on the NOR is presented to the device* and it will think it is an original version of said game (normally it would see the menu or boot program for the flash cart), or it is faked as being memory (useful for DS browser and homebrew -- https://wiki.gbatemp.net/wiki/3_in_1_Expansion_Pack_for_EZ-Flash_V#Third-Party ) or rumble. You set the option in mode A options menus.

*ostensibly to work with the GBA-DS link up function with stuff in the DS slot ( https://wiki.desmume.org/index.php?title=List_of_Nintendo_DS_games_with_GBA_connectivity without needing extra patches which are rather hard to do with original carts because... ROM and all that. The picture above with Advance Wars being an original copy of the DS game thinking the Omega DE is an original copy of advance wars 2 and giving the unlocks it does when you show you are a loyal series follower), possibly make some forms of link play easier (some link games and possibly gamecube games speak to the GBA cart but send a link play program at boot, can then not have to do as much finger wizardry or timing if you can just power on and off easily), and I guess you could use it as an uber expensive single game cart that way (some like to have their hacks or whatever boot directly** and will buy/modify flash carts accordingly, or maybe making it easy for a kid to play without having to worry about working the menu).


**there is a recently run ROMs register list too for those that might want that.


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## SilverDen (Jan 31, 2021)

What about romhacks? Are you able to play e.g. Pokemon Unbound on this? Now that would be awesome!


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## zxr750j (Jan 31, 2021)

I’ve got 2 ez iv’s, is it worth the upgrade?


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## Shadow#1 (Jan 31, 2021)

zxr750j said:


> I’ve got 2 ez iv’s, is it worth the upgrade?


Hell yes it is u will be blown away


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## Shadow#1 (Jan 31, 2021)

Dede1511 said:


> What about romhacks? Are you able to play e.g. Pokemon Unbound on this? Now that would be awesome!


Yep


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## VinsCool (Jan 31, 2021)

You actually use that DS skin.
You really have no fear or shame, and I say that as a compliment.

Joking aside, cool EZ Flash upgrade, my IV is getting old, but still works fine, is there any reason to get this one for replacement?


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## SilverDen (Jan 31, 2021)

Shadow#1 said:


> Yep


Very nice that it is possible at all! And how is the performance? I have had some issues with big framedrops on certain emulators. Does it run well?


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## Shadow#1 (Jan 31, 2021)

Dede1511 said:


> Very nice that it is possible at all! And how is the performance? I have had some issues with big framedrops on certain emulators. Does it run well?


Well it's not emulation it's real hardware


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## ov3rkill (Jan 31, 2021)

I bet that's the most expensive limited edition DS skin, next to Cory in the House of course.


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## Ampersound (Jan 31, 2021)

Asia81 said:


> Can we speak about the DS skin (Hannah Montana ?)


I just noticed the "Tart" and "Elect" labels.


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## Jayro (Jan 31, 2021)

FAST6191 said:


> The FAQ has a bit more but generally
> 
> Mode A = your classic menu driven GBA flash cart mode. What most will spend 99.99% of the time using.
> Mode B = the first ROM on the NOR is presented to the device* and it will think it is an original version of said game


I have a BennVenn GBC flashcart that behaves similar to this... There's a game flashed to the NOT chip (Shantae), and it's the only game that works. The A and B buttons don't navigate the menus properly. I'm wondering if my cart is defective, as even following youtube vids, people can launch games and firmware upgrades, and I can't do either. And I've tested it on multiple gameboys, so it's not a gameboy issue. But loading Shantae is the only game that's playable for me on it, and it sucks. :/


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## TheWolfLord (Jan 31, 2021)

How does this compare to an everdrive?


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## Clydefrosch (Jan 31, 2021)

man, that is just too expensive for a gba cart.


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## ital (Jan 31, 2021)

At half the price they'd have sold 10 times more. 

The Flashcart market is ridiculously overpriced across the board anyway because the sellers know its generally a one hit deal which is why they release nerfed versions and drip feed the "new and improved" remix batch once the hype dies down to rinse more cash out of suckers. 

These will drop to a more a reasonable price in a year once they've separated the initial batch of nerds from their money.


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## Undi (Jan 31, 2021)

The final question is : Do their Gomba GBC emulator finally play Pokémon Crystal ?


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## PZT (Jan 31, 2021)

Asia81 said:


> Can we speak about the DS skin (Hannah Montana ?)


lol that's High School Musical to you plebeian


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## Shadow#1 (Jan 31, 2021)

Undi said:


> The final question is : Do their Gomba GBC emulator finally play Pokémon Crystal ?


It never will or any flashcart that runs Goomba until someone looks at the code and fixs it


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## The Real Jdbye (Feb 1, 2021)

Looks good. What is with that skin?


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## Hambrew (Feb 1, 2021)

FAST6191 said:


> View attachment 244315​
> EZFlash sent GBAtemp a sample of their new EZFlash Omega Definitive edition to test. A full review is coming later but for now a first impressions.
> 
> For those unfamiliar then the EZFlash Omega Definitive edition is EZFlash's latest GBA flash cart. EZFlash were among the top makers of GBA flash carts during the GBA era and have been making them (as well as flash carts for the DS and more recently original gameboy) ever since.
> ...


EZ-Flash Omega Definitive Edition. Legit rolls off the tongue


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## CanIHazWarez (Feb 1, 2021)

I feel like this is a dumb question, but...  How does this differ from the EZ Flash 3-in-1?  I think I paid 20 some bucks for it years ago.  What justifies the much larger price tag between this and that?


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## FAST6191 (Feb 1, 2021)

CanIHazWarez said:


> I feel like this is a dumb question, but...  How does this differ from the EZ Flash 3-in-1?  I think I paid 20 some bucks for it years ago.  What justifies the much larger price tag between this and that?


Depends how you want to view it.

As others have intimated and otherwise stated. Most extant flash carts that are not supercards or clones thereof will be able to be coaxed into playing just about everything out there* at full speed and bug for bug compatible with the original game, and ROM hacks and cheats (if you count the likes of GBAATM, gabsharky and the like) assuming it fits on the cart in the first place (there are some 16 megabyte/128Mbit offerings out there, including the "fire cards" which could still be found in relatively recent times). This differs/differed from older devices wherein there was a large clamouring for modern electronics to provide a modern solution rather than ancient and unwieldy things -- prior to everdrive dragging the flash cart scene kicking and screaming into the modern world it was not a great place to be if you wanted N64, 16 bit or 8 bit era console flash carts (or respective handhelds for any of those periods). GBA and beyond did not really suffer that though (GBA being a solved issue during the GBA lifetime, and certainly by the time of the DS where it was still popular) and thus harder sell.

*my usual list of troublesome games http://gbatemp.net/threads/buying-a-gba-flash-cart-in-2013.341203/page-18#post-4756995

Feature wise.

The 3 in 1 was mostly aimed at users of the EZ5 to have a means of playing GBA games (the DS slot is too slow to work for GBA games), however as they made it open source and pretty cheap then it also became the de facto choice for many wanting a quick and easy means of playing GBA games on the DS if they had a DS flash cart to help manage things.
It was also somewhat rare in having rumble support built in (there was the supercard rumble, which was even worse than other supercards for GBA stuff, the M3 peeps had a separate thing if memory serves, and after that was pretty much whatever officially existed).

The Omega Definitive Edition (and indeed every other GBA flash cart made by EZFlash, give or take the EZ4 lite compact) is a standalone flash cart, indeed not even tethered to Windows for patching or a linker/cradle like some of the older stuff still (though even the EZ4 these days is standalone and self patching thanks to an update). If you have some means of loading up a microSD formatted as per requirements with GBA ROMs and unzipping the files you are good to go there, and probably carry the entire GBA library (and probably GB/GBC and NES) around in your pocket too in one device if that is a thing you want. 
It has a battery it uses to power a real time clock (the GBA, unlike the DS, has no clock so any games wanting to take advantage of it need to carry their own, and any flash cart wanting to support it also needs one or they are compelled to use patches which may or may not be suitable for some players...) but unlike the 3 in 1 it does not power the save memory. Instead save memory has moved to a SRAM a like called FeRAM that does not need power to store data. Said battery can be slid out as well rather than needing to fetch the soldering iron (though again it is not saves you risk losing but needing to set a clock).
While GBA games had largely all been dumped by 2008 (there are a few v1.1, unreleased and such in collector hands -- https://wiki.no-intro.org/index.php?title=Nintendo_-_Game_Boy_Advance_USA_undumped https://wiki.no-intro.org/index.php?title=Nintendo_-_Game_Boy_Advance_Europe_undumped https://wiki.no-intro.org/index.php?title=Undumped_Games_Lists#Game_Boy_Advance ) then it was noted that some of the GBA videos were not like other carts.
https://mgba.io/2015/10/20/dumping-the-undumped/ found them, dumped them and figured out how they work. Most flash carts and emulators will not support such things, however seemingly because they can then with this EZFlash added support of those videos. It is not actually the first time such limits were exceeded -- back in the GBA era there was a piece of homebrew called pogoshell. Some of its features included some nice music playback options that other homebrew took some time to replicate. It also means you are limited to media player options of 32 megabytes (and some older flash carts, mostly also from EZFlash, it made sense to go for 16) which is not that great for a music collection, and technically you do have video players in the form of Meteo video codec and a few others (though GBA video... yeah). I am hoping homebrew can be twisted to take advantage of that as it is a nice form factor.

You have onboard cheats rather than hoping your DS flash cart or management program has options for it, or using GBAATM to hardpatch cheats in.
Savestates are a thing (first seen back on the EZFlash 3, which is a different thing to the 3 in 1, but not seen much after that on EZFlash gear). In hardware savestates is always a tricky game (hard to stop everything, copy it all, assuming you can even read it and it is not write only, and then restore everything, from within itself) but can achieve results and be something you want to use.

Differing less to the 3 in 1 (which by virtue of its simplicity had an easier time with this than most more featured carts) but to some other GBA slot flash carts is the B mode covered elsewhere in more detail. It allows the Omega DE to behave as an original GBA game for the purposes of DS games (some of them have little unlocks, read saves made in the game to give perks to DS titles or in the case of pokemon then transport them from older titles**), as well as be a DS RAM pack to work with the unmodified web browser and DS homebrew, and rumble.

**technically the EZ4 allowed this but you had to boot the DS game from the EZ4 itself, which is annoying to do and does not work with games made past mid 2009. There are also patches you can use for the DS games (see cory1492's pokepatch) to allow them to read flash carts (including the 3 in 1, indeed the original patch came from one made by the EZTeam to support the 3 in 1 in doing it. Hard to patch an original game though (don't think we ever saw it ported to cheats -- https://www.chishm.com/NitroHax/ ) so that then means dumping a save, patching the ROM, doing the deed and flashing it back. Not sure what became of the 900 options megaman DS had here https://wiki.desmume.org/index.php?...ith_GBA_connectivity#MegaMan_Battle_Network_5 .


There are cheaper GBA flash carts. This is seemingly aimed at being something of a gilding the lilly affair. The pinnacle of what is reasonably achievable for a GBA flash cart (unless they start adding tilt sensors, solar sensors and the other weird and wonderful there is not a lot more that can reasonably be done until we start colouring way outside the lines and expanding the original hardware -- some SNES hackers and Gameboy types have gone there in recent times).


*Short version.*
Full size GBA cart (the original omega had a case you could swap) vs what is probably DS lite sized (there were full GBA size 3 in 1 carts, however they were never made in huge numbers and various repro makers, those fancying their ROM hack "on a real cart" and seemingly some electronics enthusiasts harvesting chips from it (the memory was particularly good and hard to come by or something) then they are silly rare today).
Dead battery means setting a clock (which the 3 in 1 did not have) rather than potentially losing a save. Said clock also works for those games wanting clock rather than having a patch advance time only when the game is on. Standalone (no need to have a DS flash cart and DS/DS lite waiting in the wings if you prefer some flavour of GBA or run off to specific versions of windows to use patching programs) and thus can have a library on just the cart itself.
Has a few extra features like savestates and easy to fiddle with cheats (no need for patching program). Can run GB/GBC and NES ROMs from the menu (as opposed to using either a DS emulator if you have a DS flash cart handy or making up a ROM selection using whatever build tools the GBA GB/GBC and NES emulators need). Said menu is also fairly fancy and provides options to turn on said cheats, savestates, gives little pictures of the game selected, has a list of previously played games and the like.
Has some LEDs on the bottom that will pulse if you like that sort of thing.
Has very fast RAM (almost instant load vs a few seconds) and 32 megs of it so no need to flash the larger stuff to the NOR as you might on the 3 in 1.
Can support the larger format GBA video series, should you somehow think that is a thing you want. Might also extend to homebrew in the future which is a slightly more appealing feature.
Can act as a fake GBA game for the purposes of DS games wanting that (the 3 in 1 can as well, and 99% of the options are just wanting the game to be there and not a save. The 1% though is pokemon and possibly megaman, both popular franchises with serious perks for having the GBA stuff and saves).




Whether that is worth an upgrade is then up to you.
It is a lovely flash cart, serious candidate for best out there (have not reviewed it properly yet but I very much doubt I am going to say it is junk -- it is a well built cart rather than built down to a price, stuffed with features, and made by a veteran flash cart team that originally cut their teeth on the GBA when it was current and competition fierce, and aiming at being the top flash cart to support GBA games) and if you have one it will likely be something you keep around for years in case you decide I really need to play GBA stuff on original hardware (clone consoles are rising up and tend to have inbuilt options) and be assured of playing just about everything out there with ease. If $100 is something you care to drop on a hobby and your hobby is GBA games and homebrew then yeah.

At the same time I will be the first to tell you difficulties for most lesser GBA flash carts (again anything that is not a GBA supercard or clone thereof, or some of the really earliest efforts) usually amounts to "find patch which are well documented and indexed on sites like this, load ROM and patch into patching program, press go, copy patched file across if you did not send it straight there" and not so many care for extra features beyond "play game, grab saves from it, play homebrew, can play ROM hacked games if I want, can hardpatch cheats if I really care, stores enough that I can go wandering for months and not run out of stuff" which is nothing drastic at all for just about anything. Said "lesser" carts sold in considerable numbers and will tend to have a lower price tag too. It is not like having a lesser SNES cart without access to/replication of some of the special chips wherein you will not be able to play certain games (which might be among the best games on the system https://web.archive.org/web/2012020...ven.com/ph/wiki/SNES_games_with_special_chips ), or other things where a lesser mod might mean slowdowns and crashes where there were none in the original.


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## Madridi (Feb 1, 2021)

This is cool and and all, and i would’ve gotten a few, but with a $100 price tag, it becomes more of a niche product than it already is.


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## Lapin (Feb 1, 2021)

I don't get the appeal. It includes a rumble feature, which is nice, but nothing more of great use. I mean, the extra features are nice, but hardly worth the extra price (this costs over 2x the Omega, which already runs pretty much every game). I'm guessing it doesn't have a gyroscope, so no WarioWare Twisted. No solar sensor. And, what is worse, no extra case to use it on the DS Lite without the cart protruding, which was the main reason I got an Omega. All in all, not convinced it is worth the huge price.


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## CanIHazWarez (Feb 1, 2021)

FAST6191 said:


> Depends how you want to view it.
> 
> As others have intimated and otherwise stated. Most extant flash carts...



Wow, thank you for the reply!  I was never expecting such a lengthy and in-depth comparison.  It's probably not something that is worth it for me right now, but I can understand how it might be worth it to some people.  Thanks again for such a detailed analysis.


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## enarky (Feb 1, 2021)

Madridi said:


> This is cool and and all, and i would’ve gotten a few, but with a $100 price tag, it becomes more of a niche product than it already is.


Out of curiousity, why a few?


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## Madridi (Feb 1, 2021)

enarky said:


> Out of curiousity, why a few?


I like to collect stuff lol


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## FAST6191 (Feb 1, 2021)

enarky said:


> Out of curiousity, why a few?


The quoted poster has already gone but for the sake of adding a bit more there are those that will kit out a fleet of the things as it were to either have in multiple places (other than sharing saves if you can go fire up your gb player or have a GBA to go walkabout with and still have all the games...), multiple kids (or kids at heart -- if you were a greasy teenager in 2001 playing Mario Kart GBA you might now be nearer 40 than not), serve as the basis for a link play setup (there are some wonderful 2-4 player link games on the GBA and if you just need to turn up rather than turn up with a GBA and functioning flash cart/game in question...) or as something to play with gamecubes for*.
If the difference between 40 and 100 is skip a new game that month then the difference between 160 (possibly even 40 here and there as funds allow) and 400 can be rather more tricky.

*granted I don't think we have any 4 player GBA-GC link games that also truly benefit from having an original cart (wikipedia I know but link https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GameCube_–_Game_Boy_Advance_link_cable ) unless you count pokemon (which is 2 player anyway). Most such things tending to just need a GBA + link cable and use multiboot, and frankly I think I would rather play almost any other version of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles at this point (as a dungeon crawler it was mediocre at the time save for an interesting magic system and tethering mechanic, and only got really good when you had four competent players, today there are better versions of FFCC and there have long been better multiplayer dungeon crawlers even if they are a bit thin on the ground today) which pretty much leaves pac man (which a spectacular example of asymmetric play, a phrase that was all the rage and arguably amounted to nothing about 5 years later at E3) .


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## Ryccardo (Feb 1, 2021)

coolcool9990 said:


> If this works for ds-gba link, any chance it will also work for linking to the gamecube Pokemon games?


Even the regular Omega and probably even the supercard works for that - because you don't need to boot the GBA in download play mode (start+select to make "nintendo" disappear), but rather it's the game that has "a server" built in (while the "2003 pokemon/nintendo/creatures/ripoff company made of incompetent people" appears)


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## Randy Steele (Feb 2, 2021)

I just got my EZFlash Omega in the mail today. I've been getting everything ready in preparation to mod my SP with boxypixel's unhinged shell. I've been wanting to get into gb/gbc/gba modding for years and the last real time I took a crack at it in 2013 I dropped my gameboy as soon as I installed the backlight and it broke the screen. So that and the money issue has kept me from doing it. I even managed to install the the gameamp mod and speaker and it's such a massive improvement. I'm just glad that the cheaper EZFlash was perfectly fine for what I needed.


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## Citizen_404 (Feb 2, 2021)

Does this new flash cart still suck the juice out of batteries like the older version?


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## Julie_Pilgrim (Feb 3, 2021)

Imagine if he pulled that ds out in public


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## hippy dave (Feb 3, 2021)

Citizen_404 said:


> Does this new flash cart still suck the juice out of batteries like the older version?


Blurb says it uses less power than the old version. Guess someone will have to run tests to see where it is on the scale between that and an original game cart.


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## Charli (Feb 3, 2021)

Does it run the Tyrian 2000 prototype? The Everdrive GBA X5 does not.

And how about bootleg games like this one by Vast Fame? They have some fancy copy protection and support would have to be specifically implemented I think... Would be a real surprise if it worked.


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## Shadow#1 (Mar 8, 2021)

Charli said:


> Does it run the Tyrian 2000 prototype? The Everdrive GBA X5 does not.
> 
> And how about bootleg games like this one by Vast Fame? They have some fancy copy protection and support would have to be specifically implemented I think... Would be a real surprise if it worked.


The protection will not work on any flashcart


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## Joosh13 (Mar 8, 2021)

Well there old one was unreliable garbage imo. I know some get away with it, but no matter what I did it still corrupted or lost saves. (Yes, including leaving it on for 5, 20, 100+ seconds after saving) I was going to do a drive access mod but after getting an ED I realized how much better it was and have been busy with other things.

If someone hasn't used an ED over stuff like this I recommend it is all. The extra 50 bucks was worth it, for sure.

EDIT: Oh, and the owner or whoever responds to customers doesn't seem the greatest..


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## WobblingPixels (Jul 13, 2021)

Is there any issues using the EZFlash Omega Devinite Edition with gameboy player on gamecube? Any known compatibility issues?


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