A while back I purchased a PSVita. Long after it was declared dead and obviously right after an exploit was found to allow hacked games to run on the system. While the act of running said games is morally ambiguous, I have this tendency to attempt to collect every game for a system. Something that wouldn't be feasible under normal circumstances. To put this into perspective, I have a copy of every game made for every system created at and before the original Playstation. I've never really played them. I just like collecting them. It's like an episode of Hoarders for digital data.
I was enjoying playing Disgaea 3 on the Vita, being a long time fan and those being perhaps the only games I would buy for Sony consoles. I had purchased D3 and all DLC for my PS3. I totally got a pirated version of D3 for my Vita. Disgaea 3 - Absence of Detention [PCSB00098].
Which I enjoyed quite a bit. I also pirated D4, but that has little to do with this story.
So about a week ago I decided that I didn't like how my neck felt after a long time of playing and I hated how my thumbs would occasionally block the speakers on the unit. So I figured, I'll get a PSTV and while I'm at it, I'll get a legitimate copy of D3 and D4 plus a PS4 controller to use on the unit.
I wanted to be able to swap my cart and card between the systems. While at home I could play using my big screen. While out I could use my Vita. It sounded like a great idea.
My box of goodies arrived on Friday after work. I opened it and my first impression was less than enthusiastic. The package was bland, the PSTV was tiny, and in all honestly I just jumped to the next phase. Hacking the unit.
Most everything went well. The Firmware was on 3.20, so I updated it using Henkaku's DNS. I think I could have used the USB slot as well. I decided to use a network cord instead of the wifi since I had already got the switch installed for other systems and a PC. I got Henkaku setup and then permanently installed.
It's a shame that I couldn't get Adrenalin setup due to the PSN store being a jerk. However I have a high end PC hooked up and the PPSSPP emulator along with other emulators, so this point was moot.
Once it was all setup, I went about using Vita-sav3mgr (Thanks to SKGleba for telling me about this) to get my Saved Games ported from my hacked versions to my legitimate versions of D3 and D4.
It took me a while to get the hang of it, but it was working. I got the games transfered, I ended up installing an update patch to D3 to get it to run on the PSTV since it wasn't white listed, and I was off playing D3. Or so I thought.
-= Legitimate Issues =-
Turns out that D3 wasn't actually updated to work with the PSTV. All NIS did is add it to the white list. There is this function called HQ or Honor Quotient. This uses the GPS on the Vita to see how far you've physically traveled while playing the game. The PSTV doesn't have a GPS. Rather than make it so the HQ stops working when on the PSTV it instead displays a warning screen informing the user that the function isn't working. Not what function, just that a function isn't working.
Warning Message: "This feature cannot be used"
This message would pop up every time the game tried to access the GPS function on the PSTV. This happens ALOT. Sometimes it would go five minutes without a pop up. Sometime there would be three to twenty about a second apart. It completely destroyed immersion.
WTH is this shit? Was my immediate thought. So I began the long process of figuring out what this error message was and more importantly how to stop it. I figured this was a recent issue and maybe a patch was on the way to fix it. Unfortunately this issue was first noted in 2015. More importantly, NISA knows about it and has no intention of fixing it. They consider the PSTV not worth their time.
Well that's just great. I decide to get a little honest and in an almost comical shuffle of events I've been put down like in Highschool when I asked the head cheer leader out. Honestly I think this was more brutal. NIS wasn't going to fix this. At least the head cheer leader later regretted the decision. Something NIS isn't going to do.
I decided that this was a simple issue. One of the things I've done in the past is disable a CD check on a video game. All I had to do was get the GOTO in the address to the next step or NOOP it. Instant no-cd crack. All I had to do was figure out what was causing this HQ issue and disable it. I wasn't looking forward to the daunting task of finding it either. But it had to be done. While searching I found a Reddit Page;
*Snip*
Where someone had found the offset and I was stoked. It was a simple on/off switch! Unfortunately their offset was for; and this was ironic, the hacked copy I just un-installed and had gone through the effort of swapping saved games from.
Further, the two copies were near identical. I figured the offset would work with the North American release of the game. There was just one problem. I had to use Rincheat to get it to work. Installing a PSV plugin isn't trivial. I followed the instructions and they didn't work. I ended up using the config.txt to get the plugin working for just D3. After I got it setup, it turns out that RinCheat only works with games dumped by Vitamin. Which means I couldn't used D3 since it required an update to run and for whatever reason; probably a file link in the executable, I couldn't use a VPK and have the update for the white list. At this point I had been at it for about seven hours.
I decided to simply give up using my legitimate copy of D3. Sure I could probably get it to work, however NIS has just shit in the stew and I was just done with being legitimate right now. I already had the VPK for the hacked copy on the memory card. I decided to just go with it.
I backup my saves up, changed the saves GameID again to point at the hacked copy, deleted the D3 update install for the legitimate copy, installed the hacked copy, white list the game, pointed Rincheat at the hacked copy, put the code in from the above link, and I turned HQ off. The game was now playable.
To sum it all up,
I ended up using a hacked copy of a game I bought. I had to use a cheat engine to disable something a patch could have fixed. I had to white list the game to get around a buggy update. I basically needed a hacked system to play a game that I legitimately purchased. That doesn't sit right with me.
I also had to set the read-only memory to read-write so I could remove 'Recommended Games' which kept popping up after every application exit and system reboot. It was damn annoying and PSN wouldn't even work so it was dumb to have.
That all said, I'm enjoying playing D3:AoD on my big screen with my completely voided warranty on the PSTV. The card can easily be swapped to my Vita and it keeps working. D3 doesn't even need the cart since I ended up re-pirating the game. D4 works fine from the cart.
I'm going to make a Tutorial for getting D3 working on the PSTV.
I was enjoying playing Disgaea 3 on the Vita, being a long time fan and those being perhaps the only games I would buy for Sony consoles. I had purchased D3 and all DLC for my PS3. I totally got a pirated version of D3 for my Vita. Disgaea 3 - Absence of Detention [PCSB00098].
Which I enjoyed quite a bit. I also pirated D4, but that has little to do with this story.
So about a week ago I decided that I didn't like how my neck felt after a long time of playing and I hated how my thumbs would occasionally block the speakers on the unit. So I figured, I'll get a PSTV and while I'm at it, I'll get a legitimate copy of D3 and D4 plus a PS4 controller to use on the unit.
I wanted to be able to swap my cart and card between the systems. While at home I could play using my big screen. While out I could use my Vita. It sounded like a great idea.
My box of goodies arrived on Friday after work. I opened it and my first impression was less than enthusiastic. The package was bland, the PSTV was tiny, and in all honestly I just jumped to the next phase. Hacking the unit.
Most everything went well. The Firmware was on 3.20, so I updated it using Henkaku's DNS. I think I could have used the USB slot as well. I decided to use a network cord instead of the wifi since I had already got the switch installed for other systems and a PC. I got Henkaku setup and then permanently installed.
It's a shame that I couldn't get Adrenalin setup due to the PSN store being a jerk. However I have a high end PC hooked up and the PPSSPP emulator along with other emulators, so this point was moot.
Once it was all setup, I went about using Vita-sav3mgr (Thanks to SKGleba for telling me about this) to get my Saved Games ported from my hacked versions to my legitimate versions of D3 and D4.
It took me a while to get the hang of it, but it was working. I got the games transfered, I ended up installing an update patch to D3 to get it to run on the PSTV since it wasn't white listed, and I was off playing D3. Or so I thought.
-= Legitimate Issues =-
Turns out that D3 wasn't actually updated to work with the PSTV. All NIS did is add it to the white list. There is this function called HQ or Honor Quotient. This uses the GPS on the Vita to see how far you've physically traveled while playing the game. The PSTV doesn't have a GPS. Rather than make it so the HQ stops working when on the PSTV it instead displays a warning screen informing the user that the function isn't working. Not what function, just that a function isn't working.
Warning Message: "This feature cannot be used"
This message would pop up every time the game tried to access the GPS function on the PSTV. This happens ALOT. Sometimes it would go five minutes without a pop up. Sometime there would be three to twenty about a second apart. It completely destroyed immersion.
WTH is this shit? Was my immediate thought. So I began the long process of figuring out what this error message was and more importantly how to stop it. I figured this was a recent issue and maybe a patch was on the way to fix it. Unfortunately this issue was first noted in 2015. More importantly, NISA knows about it and has no intention of fixing it. They consider the PSTV not worth their time.
Well that's just great. I decide to get a little honest and in an almost comical shuffle of events I've been put down like in Highschool when I asked the head cheer leader out. Honestly I think this was more brutal. NIS wasn't going to fix this. At least the head cheer leader later regretted the decision. Something NIS isn't going to do.
I decided that this was a simple issue. One of the things I've done in the past is disable a CD check on a video game. All I had to do was get the GOTO in the address to the next step or NOOP it. Instant no-cd crack. All I had to do was figure out what was causing this HQ issue and disable it. I wasn't looking forward to the daunting task of finding it either. But it had to be done. While searching I found a Reddit Page;
*Snip*
Where someone had found the offset and I was stoked. It was a simple on/off switch! Unfortunately their offset was for; and this was ironic, the hacked copy I just un-installed and had gone through the effort of swapping saved games from.
Further, the two copies were near identical. I figured the offset would work with the North American release of the game. There was just one problem. I had to use Rincheat to get it to work. Installing a PSV plugin isn't trivial. I followed the instructions and they didn't work. I ended up using the config.txt to get the plugin working for just D3. After I got it setup, it turns out that RinCheat only works with games dumped by Vitamin. Which means I couldn't used D3 since it required an update to run and for whatever reason; probably a file link in the executable, I couldn't use a VPK and have the update for the white list. At this point I had been at it for about seven hours.
I decided to simply give up using my legitimate copy of D3. Sure I could probably get it to work, however NIS has just shit in the stew and I was just done with being legitimate right now. I already had the VPK for the hacked copy on the memory card. I decided to just go with it.
I backup my saves up, changed the saves GameID again to point at the hacked copy, deleted the D3 update install for the legitimate copy, installed the hacked copy, white list the game, pointed Rincheat at the hacked copy, put the code in from the above link, and I turned HQ off. The game was now playable.
To sum it all up,
I ended up using a hacked copy of a game I bought. I had to use a cheat engine to disable something a patch could have fixed. I had to white list the game to get around a buggy update. I basically needed a hacked system to play a game that I legitimately purchased. That doesn't sit right with me.
I also had to set the read-only memory to read-write so I could remove 'Recommended Games' which kept popping up after every application exit and system reboot. It was damn annoying and PSN wouldn't even work so it was dumb to have.
That all said, I'm enjoying playing D3:AoD on my big screen with my completely voided warranty on the PSTV. The card can easily be swapped to my Vita and it keeps working. D3 doesn't even need the cart since I ended up re-pirating the game. D4 works fine from the cart.
I'm going to make a Tutorial for getting D3 working on the PSTV.
Last edited by Tom Bombadildo,
