ROM Hack Sonic Advance save patch

[Rubyheart]

I wanted to use Sonic Advance (or any of it's iterations) to connect to Sonic Adventure DX/Battle on the Gamecube/Wii, to transfer Chao over and raise them on the GBA (via EZFlash3-in-1) and send them back, etc. However, when trying to leave the Tiny Chao Garden on the GBA, the screen hangs and it looks like it's frozen. After a little research, it looks like after about two minutes it will actually go back to the main screen and act normal again. The problem however, is that it doesn't actually save the Tiny Chao Garden at all. I'm afraid if I transfer something from the Wii to the GBA that it'll get lost forever.

Is there a patch to fix this floating around anywhere? The only posts I could find on this topic are years old, and nothing pointing to a solution.

 

[FAST6191]

I doubt there will be -- the issue is that the 3 in 1 and all other GBA flash carts use SRAM to save and Sonic seems to use various versions of flash. The gamecube game would then use flash access commands/protocol (not sure whether it would be gamecube powerpc code or GBA ARM7 multiboot code). There are similar issues with pokemon pal park which is why we eventually saw the DS game get patched with pokepatch.

To the best of my knowledge nobody has made any similar patches for any GC games to read GBA flash cart SRAM, let alone one for Sonic.

 

[Rubyheart]

I never needed pokepatch (in fact it actually stoped the game from loading at all on my r4), so maybe it was just built into the cart.

It's too bad about Sonic Advance though. I'm not going to risk my own Chao, but I might try downloading a save, just to see if I can move from the gba to the cube.

I may have spoke too soon. I need to do more testing, but it looks like it's working. I started the Sonic Advance + Sonic Pinball Party double pack, and from a cold boot went into SA, and into the Garden. I hatched the Chao, then went to save and quit. It didn't freeze. Just to make sure, I went back in, and the Chao was still there, and the ring count from the minigame was correct. I even shut it off, and from a cold boot again went into the garden, and things were the same. Maybe hatching the Chao was the key to making it not freeze?​

 

[Rubyheart]

Hm, well I may have found another odd issue. Saving the garden seemed to be going fine, but then I played the actual game for a while. Then I went back to the garden, and it started to hang when I went to leave. When I went back in, nothing I had done was saved. I turned the game off, went in with a cold boot again, and things seemed to work fine. Even playing the main game for a short time and going to the garden is fine. It seems like the longer the main game is played, the higher the likelihood of the garden not working correctly. I guess as long as I only play the main game in short bursts, or turn it off before going into the garden, it should be ok. Really odd issue.