Hello girls and guys,

Having a Wii U and wanting to play the compatible Wii games with a Gamecube controller, using the wup-028-bslug by Chadderz121 was a way to do it, but I had two problems.


-My first problem was that I launch my Wii games from USB Loader GX but I couldn't manage to make brainslug work with it. After some research on the web I found a solution, you can load an alternative .dol when launching the game from USB Loader GX. In my case, this alternative dol is brainslug.
Combining this solution with the fact that brainslug can load specific symbols and modules depending on the game, I have here for you a set of files that you can put on your SD card to launch the games that I listed below and make them work with the Wii U gamecube adapter, and make it work with USB Loader GX.


-The second one was that not all games were compatible (like Guilty Gear XX Accent Core), on some of the Wii symbols used by the wup-028-bslug couldn't be located. I tried myself to use Ghidra and the Dolphin memory watcher to locate them on these games but I never sucedded. Recently, with the release of chatgpt version 5, I asked it if may knew these missing symbols.

By using the Reverse-engineered Nintendo SDK function dumps (publicly documented in places like devkitPro forums and various Wii homebrew repos), the Super Mario Sunshine decompilation, the Mario Kart Wii decompilation, Dolphin Emulator test builds and its own byte pattern extraction from a few main.dol files of Wii retail games (from its own words), ChatGPT managed to give me an updated version of the file used by the wup-028-bslug. On the bottom of this thread is my discussion with ChatGPT.
I'm not gonna lie, exept for one, none of these symbols managed to work. So, if you are more talented than me, you can help me to find them. The unknown symbols are all from late era Wii games (Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus, Sonic Colours, Fifa 12, etc...).

So, if like me you want to use Brainslug with USB Loader GX and use the wup-028-bslug on these Wii games, here is what to do


What to do:

a) Follow the Brainslug-Wii and wup-028-bslug tutorials to install Brainslug on your Wii / Wii U. Checkout the end of this post to get the last compiled version of Brainslug-Wii and the updated wup-028-bslug files.

b) Create a :sd/alternative_dols folder, put in it -for each game that you want to be lanched with Brainslug- a copy of Brainslug's boot.dol and rename it to you_game_id.dol (example: RM8E01.dol for Mario Party 8 NTSC-U). For this point only, I didn't put in the sd zip file contains all the necessary files for the compatible games of the list because it's region depandant. I only did it for MK Wii.

c) In the :sd/brainslug/modules folder, make a folder for each Wii game you want to load a brainslug module, the folder name is its id without the last two characters (example: RM8E for Mario Party 8 USA). Put in this folder the modules (.mod files) that you want to load. The sd zip file contains all the necessary files for the compatible games of the list (even the not compatibles).

d) In the :sd/brainslug/modules folder, delete the pad.xml file, make a folder for each Wii game you want to load a brainslug module, the folder name follows the same rules as the modules folders. Put in this folder the symbols (.xml files) that you want to load. Same as before, the sd zip file contains all the necessary files for the games of the list (even the not compatibles).

e) In USB Loader GX, change the path for DOL's to "sd:\alternative_dols\".

f) In the loading parameters of the game you want to load with Brainslug, turn alternate DOL to ON.

g) Launch the game, some text will normally indicate that the necessary symbols are found then the game will show up.


Game compatibility (V->compatible):

-Bomberman Land Wii [RBB] (loads but inputs don't do anything)
-Castlevania Judgment [RDG] (V)
-Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 2 [RD4] (V)
-Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 3 [RJR] (PADInit not found)
-Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 2 [RDB] (V)
-Dragon Ball Z Budokai Tenkaichi 3 [RDS] (V)
-Dragon Ball Revenge of King Piccolo [R7G] (V)
-FIFA 09 All-Play [RF9] (loads but inputs don't do anything)
-FIFA 10 [R4R] (loads but inputs don't do anything)
-FIFA 12 [SI3] (PADInit not found)
-Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn [RFE] (V)
-GoldenEye 007 [SJB] (PADInit not found)
-Guilty Gear XX Accent Core Plus [R3N] (PADInit not found)
-Klonoa [R96] (freezes on brainslug launch)
-Mario Kart Wii [RMC] (V)
-Metal Slug Anthology [RML] (V)
-Mortal Kombat Armageddon [RKM] (PADRead not found)
-Muramasa - The Demon Blade [RSF] (PADInit not found)
-MySims Racing [RQG] (V)
-Naruto Clash of Ninja Revolution European Version [RNX] (V)
-Naruto Clash of Ninja Revolution 2 [RNY] (V)
-Naruto Shippuden Clash of Ninja Revolution 3 [RNE] (V)
-Naruto Shippuden Dragon Blade Chronicles [SN4] (PADInit not found)
-Need for Speed [SNH] (PADInit not found)
-Need for Speed Nitro [R7X] (V)
-Need for Speed Undercover [RX9] (V)
-Resident Evil Archives Resident Evil [RE4] (V)
-Resident Evil Archives Resident Evil Zero [RBH] (V)
-Resident Evil 4 Wii Edition [RB4] (loads but inputs don't do anything)
-Samurai Warriors 3 [S59] (PADInit not found)
-Sin and Punishment Successor of the Skies [R2V] (PADInit not found)
-SNK Arcade Classics Volume 1 [RJZ] (V)
-Sonic Colours [SNC] (PADInit not found)
-Sonic Riders Zero Gravity [RS9] (V)
-Sonic Unleashed [RSV] (loads but inputs don't do anything)
-Super Mario All-Stars [SVM] (PADInit not found)
-Super Smash Bros. Brawl [RSB] (V) (symbols found but crash on launch)


Files

-The last compiled version of Brainslug-Wii with the updated wup-028-bslug files (to put on your sd card).

-My discussion with ChatGPT.


Troubleshooting

-The game may not load correctly everytime, you may have to shut down your console and retry to launch the game to make it work.


Thank you for reading me, thank you Chadderz for brainslug, feel free to help if you want.
I wish you a nice day

 

[juderas]

Actually I only tested RE4 on Wii U, to see if it worked regarding to loading freeze. But else on a regular Wii, I tested :
- Dragon Ball revenge of Piccolo daimao (works perfectly)
- DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (works but L and R analog think it's fully pressed while it's only half pressed)
- Mario kart Wii (works, actually the brainslug was made for him)
I didn't tested other games yet

To answer you, I think that the sd issue come from USB loader GX itself, I think it can't load an alternative dol while it's in SD mode. The SD mode is pretty recent btw and GX wasn't know for SD support, Wiiflow was.

would you mind showing us your sd cards file structure? im assuming that you have the alt dols on there, but if not i wont mind testing from a usb instead
i will be testing out all these games for myself , maybe its just an issue with sonic riders

 

[SK91]

Ok so surprising, and disappointing thing, on Wii U the controls seams to work now on resident evil 4 (but still unplayable) in the menu if the USB adapter is connected to the rear usb port of the console. Does it mean that the brainslug module is only compatible for a Wii setup (usb 0 and 1) and not for Wii U's usb 2 and 3 ports ?
It's disappointing because, even if I test through a usb stick, games need be loaded from HDD in port 0 with Y cable, I can't plug into port 0 + the other part of the cable to the rear of the console, then plug the GC controller adapter to the port 1 and the grey cable to the rear of the console too.


You can try plugging the adapter to the 2nd rear usb port of the console to test if it works

Vibration seems to work with just one cable on wii u but you can have the data one in the back and power in the front, y cable not too sure, I use a sata hdd with an external PSU or a flash drive on mine

 

[creedof69]

would you mind showing us your sd cards file structure? im assuming that you have the alt dols on there, but if not i wont mind testing from a usb instead
i will be testing out all these games for myself , maybe its just an issue with sonic riders

Post automatically merged: Jan 21, 2026

Vibration seems to work with just one cable on wii u but you can have the data one in the back and power in the front, y cable not too sure, I use a sata hdd with an external PSU or a flash drive on mine

I didn't want to say that it was physically impossible sorry, but the better setup would have been the hdd with the 2 rear usbs and the GameCube controller adapter on the front just like this (I don't want to unstick the 2 cables of the adapter lol )

 

[juderas]

Post automatically merged: Jan 21, 2026

I didn't want to say that it was physically impossible sorry, but the better setup would have been the hdd with the 2 rear usbs and the GameCube controller adapter on the front just like this (I don't want to unstick the 2 cables of the adapter lol )
View attachment 552386

when i ensured my file structure was exactly like yours, only difference being the region letter being “E” i got this screen, the game booted just fine but my gamecube controller still wouldn’t work
are you using the same brainslug app as op? or is yours from the github

 

[creedof69]

when i ensured my file structure was exactly like yours, only difference being the region letter being “E” i got this screen, the game booted just fine but my gamecube controller still wouldn’t work
are you using the same brainslug app as op? or is yours from the github

I use the brainslug app from the OP. Are you pluging the USB adapter on the USB port 1 at the rear of the console ? I discovered that front USB port are simply disabled at hardware level while vWii boot. So for now none IOS or cIOS can "see" the usb 2 and 3. Also, are you using the official wup 028 adapter or a third party one ?

 

[juderas]

I use the brainslug app from the OP. Are you pluging the USB adapter on the USB port 1 at the rear of the console ? I discovered that front USB port are simply disabled at hardware level while vWii boot. So for now none IOS or cIOS can "see" the usb 2 and 3. Also, are you using the official wup 028 adapter or a third party one ?

ahh i have my gamecube adapter plugged into the front ports of my wii u, like in the photo you added along with your file structure. i guess my problem now is that since my hard drive uses both port0 and port1, i wont be able to test if the adapter works or not
EDIT: i managed to have both plugged in and tested ctgp revolution firstly, then i tested dragon ball revenge of king piccolo did register inputs from my gamecube controller on the logo splash screen and save select!! unfortunately when i tried a backup of mario kart wii i had no so luck, same with sonic riders zero gravity…

 

[creedof69]

ahh i have my gamecube adapter plugged into the front ports of my wii u, like in the photo you added along with your file structure. i guess my problem now is that since my hard drive uses both port0 and port1, i wont be able to test if the adapter works or not
EDIT: i managed to have both plugged in and tested ctgp revolution firstly, then i tested dragon ball revenge of king piccolo did register inputs from my gamecube controller on the logo splash screen and save select!! unfortunately when i tried a backup of mario kart wii i had no so luck, same with sonic riders zero gravity…

I don't know what to say, maybe for some games the basic pad.xml doesn't correspond to the controls in the game code. But for Mario kart Wii it should work nonetheless. Do you turn the wiimote off when the game is running ? It should even works for the 4 player ports

 

[juderas]

I don't know what to say, maybe for some games the basic pad.xml doesn't correspond to the controls in the game code. But for Mario kart Wii it should work nonetheless. Do you turn the wiimote off when the game is running ? It should even works for the 4 player ports

its so strange. using ops sd card structure mario kart wii doesn’t work through the brainslug channel (disc), usb loader gx (disc or backup)
but when i downloaded the wup028 module and its version of brainslug from github, my controller worked with the newly downloaded brainslug channel, usbloader gx (with the disc inserted) but not through my backup.
the backup of dragon ball revenge of king piccolo i have works with both these versions + their respective alt-dols (loaded strictly through usb loader gx) and if what i heard about this module being created specifically for mario kart wii is true, its mind boggling why its so finicky compared to a random db tie in game lol
small edit: ive done all these tests with my wiimote on and off and it doesn’t seem to make a difference

 

[creedof69]

its so strange. using ops sd card structure mario kart wii doesn’t work through the brainslug channel (disc), usb loader gx (disc or backup)
but when i downloaded the wup028 module and its version of brainslug from github, my controller worked with the newly downloaded brainslug channel, usbloader gx (with the disc inserted) but not through my backup.
the backup of dragon ball revenge of king piccolo i have works with both these versions + their respective alt-dols (loaded strictly through usb loader gx) and if what i heard about this module being created specifically for mario kart wii is true, its mind boggling why its so finicky compared to a random db tie in game lol
small edit: ive done all these tests with my wiimote on and off and it doesn’t seem to make a difference

Well the module have been made for Mario kart Wii stock, if you run it for a Rom hack it may have an unpredictable behavior. You're trying with CTGP if I understood ?

 

[juderas]

Well the module have been made for Mario kart Wii stock, if you run it for a Rom hack it may have an unpredictable behavior. You're trying with CTGP if I understood ?

yes ive tested ctgp already, and the mario kart wii backup im trying to run is of the stock game, not a romhack

 

[creedof69]

yes ive tested ctgp already, and the mario kart wii backup im trying to run is of the stock game, not a romhack

In that case, I don't know sorry.