DS #4973: Puzzle Quest 2 (USA)

[Dana Crysalis]

Any suggestions on which emulator can run this? My DS just suffered an accident while I was playing, and no longer displays the top screen. I am quite distraught.

 

[Mbmax]

Well I hope someone releases a clean version of this soon. I really dislike the cracktro stuff. You'd think with all the fuss that came with Dementium2 that they'd avoid doing it again?

You act like cracktros are a new thing. It's releasing games uncracked, nonworking and with no cracktro which is a recent thing. Ideally, all games would be properly released with a cracktro, but Venom is one of the few remaining real scene groups working on the DS from the GBC/GBA days.

I'm not agree this you. Those cracktro sometimes makes more trouble than fix them.

It's just great for all those DSTT, or fake R4 owners. Let them use roms without any support of their "team".

Those groups doesn't look at the futur, just the present. We will need again clean dump later, i'm pretty sure.

I'm not against intro/cracktro, i just think those groups should attach their crack (xdelta or ips) with their clean dump.

 

[BlueStar]

You don't end up playing "clean" dumps anyway, the flashcart teams usually just take the crackers code and make the loader automatically patch out the AP in the same way,

 

[Mbmax]

No, wrong. Not true on DSone, dstwo, cyclods evo and ezvi.
Just need to handle correctly reads under 0x8000 which is the case on almost AP protected game.
No patch used.

 

[Prof. 9]

The new VENOM/SUXXORS releases have intros again, so I made another intro skip.

Skipping Puzzle Quest 2 intro: open the ROM in a hex editor change the byte at address 1D29CF from 1A to EA.

 

[tijntje_7]

The intro is actually pretty cool

No need to skip it ^^
I loved the first, I hope this one will be as good

 

[cosmiccow]

Well, while it's not shovelware by any means, I don't believe that 8.5 score from IGN.

If it has a good intro I want it. I adore their last one (from Megaman Zero collection), that tune just kicks.

 

[Miser]

Well I hope someone releases a clean version of this soon. I really dislike the cracktro stuff. You'd think with all the fuss that came with Dementium2 that they'd avoid doing it again?

You act like cracktros are a new thing. It's releasing games uncracked, nonworking and with no cracktro which is a recent thing. Ideally, all games would be properly released with a cracktro, but Venom is one of the few remaining real scene groups working on the DS from the GBC/GBA days.

Try playing some introed GBA releases on a slot 2 like the EZ 3in1. They don't work. Clean dumps of the same games do.
PC scene has rules that make sense, that the game is released clean with a crack included. And if they release a cracktro, it's also separate.
Why can't they do that in the NDS scene aswell?

 

[Leamonde.Halcyon]

I'm happy with my cracktro version. Working beautifully on my AK 2.1 with Akaio 1.7

It's definitely different from CotW and Galactrix, and some of it feels a bit clunky but overall I'm very pleased with it,

 

[Azngamer15]

why is it so fucking UGLY. I don't understand

 

[Donato_Dobango]

I don't think it's ugly at all. Just more of an anime-inspired art style than the first game. The GUI is less cluttered and the close ups of the overworld means you are just walking through a dozen similar looking sprites that represent new castles.

So far the game itself seems a little easy, something I hope is fixed once I get past level 10.

 

[doyama]

Well I hope someone releases a clean version of this soon. I really dislike the cracktro stuff. You'd think with all the fuss that came with Dementium2 that they'd avoid doing it again?

You act like cracktros are a new thing. It's releasing games uncracked, nonworking and with no cracktro which is a recent thing. Ideally, all games would be properly released with a cracktro, but Venom is one of the few remaining real scene groups working on the DS from the GBC/GBA days.

Well they're not new definitely, but to be honest have kinda become less and less so over the years. PC games used to be full of them but even there it's becoming minimized, aside from the keygens and whatnot. Perhaps with the NDS AP becoming more of an 'issue' that cracktros will become more common. But right now I think they're the exception, not the rule even in general.

 

[TrolleyDave]

Well they're not new definitely, but to be honest have kinda become less and less so over the years. PC games used to be full of them but even there it's becoming minimized, aside from the keygens and whatnot. Perhaps with the NDS AP becoming more of an 'issue' that cracktros will become more common. But right now I think they're the exception, not the rule even in general.

I can remember the C64/Atari ST/Amiga days when if it didn't have a crack and an intro it was nuked and the entire scene made fun of the release group. lol

 

[Ruri]

I don't like it. Lots of problems.

Mandatory door-opening and trap-disarming minigames. Didn't they learn from how much people hated that in Galactrix?

The vast majority of the weapons and items seem to have generic effects -- weapons usually just do damage. None of the interesting triggered effects that you had in PQ1, at least so far, and tons and tons of equipment that only differs from each other by minor numbers.

Ugly game. Noticably uglier than the original PQ. Feels like the graphics were designed for the PC and crudely ported to the DS.

Maybe it gets better later. Do you eventually find more interesting equipment, with more interesting passive effects? Mostly what I liked about Puzzle Quest was the wide variety of interesting stuff you could play around with, interesting combinations and combos you can form -- all of the sequels have, for some reason, been worse at that, providing fewer options.

 

[darkydz]

Does anyone use No$GBA? I don't want SPANISH Puzzle Quest 2. How to change it to ENGLISH?

 

[Miser]

Well they're not new definitely, but to be honest have kinda become less and less so over the years. PC games used to be full of them but even there it's becoming minimized, aside from the keygens and whatnot. Perhaps with the NDS AP becoming more of an 'issue' that cracktros will become more common. But right now I think they're the exception, not the rule even in general.

I can remember the C64/Atari ST/Amiga days when if it didn't have a crack and an intro it was nuked and the entire scene made fun of the release group. lol

Wanting to release working games is understandable. I agree that they should crack them, BUT I really can't see why they have to PREcrack it, why not include a clean version and a patch.
What I don't get are the intros. What do they contribute to the release? Is it just an ego thing, wanting to leave their mark?

 

[doyama]

Well they're not new definitely, but to be honest have kinda become less and less so over the years. PC games used to be full of them but even there it's becoming minimized, aside from the keygens and whatnot. Perhaps with the NDS AP becoming more of an 'issue' that cracktros will become more common. But right now I think they're the exception, not the rule even in general.

I can remember the C64/Atari ST/Amiga days when if it didn't have a crack and an intro it was nuked and the entire scene made fun of the release group. lol

Haha indeed. Getting 'warez' off the BBS' with my 28.8 Supra Modem. Somewhat scary that back then I actually knew how to create a working modem string, from scratch, without any references. I suppose it's no different than having to muddle through the Cisco OS to configure the switches around here. Somethings change, but somethings remain the same!

 

[Wanted]

pfft BBS... i used to get my Amiga Warez via post from Fairlight in Australia to NZ.

 

[Mbmax]

Just to let you know guys, this is not a cracktro, but just an intro.
No AP on this game as i can see on the clean dump.

 

[Noib]

Wanting to release working games is understandable. I agree that they should crack them, BUT I really can't see why they have to PREcrack it, why not include a clean version and a patch.
What I don't get are the intros. What do they contribute to the release? Is it just an ego thing, wanting to leave their mark?

Which shows you don't understand the scene. That's what it's all about; bragging rights. It's not about spreading warez. Historically, (definitely in this case if you have seen the internal floating around by a fake group who is probably just venom) sceners don't like p2p. Releases are for the scene, not for outsiders. Of course affiliates get leaks and the public gets access to it, but that's not what the groups want. They are not out to please the common mouth breather. Just be happy that dumping is so easy and far spread these days that it's easy to get a clean release if they don't release one.

That said, I agree that it would be nice if it went more PC style and released the clean rom and cracktro patch for edge case compatibility reasons. Hell, on games that don't need a crack they could release a separate .nds that's just an intro similar to what has been done in the past. However, I don't expect them to actually do this. In the end it doesn't really hurt anyone, as the people who complain about this sort of thing are the self entitled useless zero-day leechers. Serious groups who are archiving for preservation purposes are just going to re-dump later anyways.