Homebrew Hacking Physical Cartridge of Pokemon

[FlaringRyder]

Hi, my name is Ryder. Today, I just bought my first 3DS XL from my local store at Singapore. Of course, I wanted to use Pkhex on my Pokemon X like everyone else, and I saw YouTube videos saying that this is possible even on firmware 11.3 and above.

What I didn't know, or rather, didn't remember, was that physical copies of DS games come in cartridges, and that their save file is saved in the cartridge, not the 3DS' micro SD card. Most of the Pkhex tutorials mention accessing the SD card, not the cart. Big oops.

So does that mean I need to sell my physical copy of Pokemon and buy a digital copy in order to edit my Pokemon save file? The digital copy saves the game onto the Micro SD card, right? Which I can then edit using Pkhex, right? Or is there a method around this inconvenience? Is there a way to edit the save file from my physical copy of Pokemon whatsoever? Like a game card reader or something? I know there's Powersave, but I also know that doesn't work with Pkhex because of the encrypted save file (and there's a lot of complicated hoops to jump through to decrypt it).

I'm obviously a noob who didn't know what I was getting into when I spent so much money on a new 3DS and a game to add, thinking that I could simply take the SD card and gen my Pokemon away. I really hope any of you could provide any assistance at all. Here are the details again:

My 3DS firmware: 11.0
Pokemon copy: Physical
Homebrew Installed?: Yep

Please and thank you.

 

[proflayton123]

You can use soundhax and JKSM to extract your physical save for PkHex

 

[Deleted member 333767]

If you have homebrew capabilities, you can dump your save data with JK save manager or savedatafiler, edit it with pkhex and then re-import it into your physical cart.

If you don't have homebrew capabilities, you can use Action Replay Powersaves 3DS for save editing, but not in the same sense as PKhex.

 

[proflayton123]

https://gbatemp.net/threads/release-jks-savemanager-homebrew-cia-save-manager.413143/

 

[FlaringRyder]

So you CAN extract the save data from a physical cartridge? Oh thank god. So much thanks for the quick response, both of you. I thought I had to buy a digital copy of the game.

So sorry if this question had been asked before. I was just so nervous and confused and had to get someone to help me. I just hope I don't run into any more problems.

I hope the mods could keep this thread open in case I run into any more problems with the extraction... Sorry for the trouble and much appreciated!

 

[proflayton123]

It's fine honestly you're welcome, PM me if you need


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[FlaringRyder]

View attachment 80601
This should be helpful.

Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk

lol Trust me, I tried. I wouldn't be here if Google had helped. Google's like my go-to during panic mode, so it's the first thing I thought of. But Google's search engine can be a mess, so just typing "How to hack Pokemon cartridge pkhex" into the search bar doesn't necessarily guarantee helpful results. All I got was a bunch of results about SD cards that got me more confused due to the stuff I said in my opening post about how cartridges (supposedly) don't save onto your SD card.

Anyway, I know it's troublesome, and I'm sorry. Glad things worked out though. I got Homebrew working!

Oh yeah, and regarding Homebrew, I mistyped something up there in my opening post: my firmware is 11.0, not 11.3. I didn't check my firmware version before. I had assumed that all retail versions of 3DS would automatically be running 11.3 and above... lol

 

[OfficialBrony]

lol Trust me, I tried. I wouldn't be here if Google had helped. Google's like my go-to during panic mode, so it's the first thing I thought of. But Google's search engine can be a mess, so just typing "How to hack Pokemon cartridge pkhex" into the search bar doesn't necessarily guarantee helpful results. All I got was a bunch of results about SD cards that got me more confused due to the stuff I said in my opening post about how cartridges (supposedly) don't save onto your SD card.

Anyway, I know it's troublesome, and I'm sorry. Glad things worked out though. I got Homebrew working!

Oh yeah, and regarding Homebrew, I mistyped something up there in my opening post: my firmware is 11.0, not 11.3. I didn't check my firmware version before. I had assumed that all retail versions of 3DS would automatically be running 11.3 and above... lol

Lol you were asking about how to modify the save file of a Pokémon game.
You can easily find out on Google without making a new thread.
Learn common sense sometime, it will make life a hell of a lot easier to live.

Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk

 

[FlaringRyder]

Lol you were asking about how to modify the save file of a Pokémon game.
You can easily find out on Google without making a new thread.
Learn common sense sometime, it will make life a hell of a lot easier to live.

Sent from my SM-G903W using Tapatalk

Mhmmmm... noooo. I was asking how to access the save file inside a physical copy of a Pokemon game - there's a difference. You're more than welcome to Google about that to see if you get results as excellent as you might assume you would. As I said, none of the results I got informed me anything about JKSM or how you're able to extract the save file from a physical copy. Information as convoluted as that requires a human answer, not something an A.I. engine could just churn out at your whim.

Moreover, most, if not all of the results I got about modifying the save file of a Pokemon game involved, like I said earlier, the accessing of your 3DS' SD card and the possession of an SD card reader. How was I, a new 3DS user, supposed to know that you don't actually need to access your SD card to extract data from the game card/game cartridge?

 

[GRag777]

So I was doing the same stuff got my homebrew and cfw but when i go to export save on pksm I get an error message (trying to do it on pokemon oras) using my own game and tried with my friends game as well same error. Both games work fine for standard play using the cartridge. Should I convert game to cia and then maybe have better luck exporting? I don't care if it wipes all my saved data just wanted to try stuff with oras before I mess around with sun and moon.

 

[ootnes2]

So I was doing the same stuff got my homebrew and cfw but when i go to export save on pksm I get an error message (trying to do it on pokemon oras) using my own game and tried with my friends game as well same error. Both games work fine for standard play using the cartridge. Should I convert game to cia and then maybe have better luck exporting? I don't care if it wipes all my saved data just wanted to try stuff with oras before I mess around with sun and moon.

JKSM works for those cartridges. Try exporting other games (non-pokemon) and see if they work.

 

[GRag777]

So I was doing the same stuff got my homebrew and cfw but when i go to export save on pksm I get an error message (trying to do it on pokemon oras) using my own game and tried with my friends game as well same error. Both games work fine for standard play using the cartridge. Should I convert game to cia and then maybe have better luck exporting? I don't care if it wipes all my saved data just wanted to try stuff with oras before I mess around with sun and moon.

JKSM works for those cartridges. Try exporting other games (non-pokemon) and see if they work.

ill check when I get home from work but whenever I would try to export I believe the error message would read "error opening save archive" or something along those lines which I've read is a common problem if you're trying to edit a game you've never opened before (one without a save on it) but that's not the case. I'm new to a lot of these programs so a bit confused but the cfw and homebrew installation all worked perfectly I'm so close to getting the pkhex going lol but of course basically the last step doesn't work.

 

[Shady Guy Jose]

There are other save dumping programs, such as the old SaveDataFiler. I believe it can't be linked here, since it's an official (leaked) Nintendo program, but you may be able to find it. While it isn't as straightforward as others (likely due to never being supposed to be made available for the masses), it will always work with every game, and its extracted save file format is compatible with PKHex.

 

[GRag777]

So this is what happens when I try to export the save from the cartridge. Wanted to get u guys a picture. I'm going to try using jksm with the game ripped to cia file and see if that works otherwise I'll try a different save manager like someone above suggested. When you open jksm is it supposed to prompt you on which game it will access because no such thing happens to me it just brings he straight to the menu in the image. It does not bring me to the menu where u can choose cartridge or sd/cia

 

[GRag777]

I installed cia version of pksm and now everything works fine. Don't know why really but anyways figured good to know if somebody else runs into the problem. Thanks!