Trouble Playing Lufia The Legend Returns (GBC)

[Piplup87]

I went to play Lufia The Legend Returns (Lufia 3) on GBC the other day and ran into some trouble. I did find a solution eventually, but after searching I couldn't find an existing up to date thread about this game and some of the trouble running it.

I started trying to run the game on the EZ-Flash Junior. For reference, I am playing on a GBC with a new IPS screen. Everything seemed to work EXCEPT the temporary save function available from the map menu. When selecting this, the EZ-Flash Junior seems to immediately delete the temporary save and the existing full save for the game. I haven't found this error discussed anywhere about the EZ-Flash junior or game compatibility for the device.

I did checksum my ROM and it was a valid file. I also have had no trouble with the Junior on other games played recently (pkmn crystal, shantae, etc.)

I also have a GB USB Smart Card 64M, so I tried to load the ROM on this next. This produced only a white screen, and wouldn't even load the game. The Smart Card was working with other GB and GBC roms, so it seems to be something particular to this game. I found a thread on the forum NESDEV from 2014, the thread is titled "Fixing ROMs for EMS 64 GB Smart Card USB". On page 19, a user named MottZilla posted an IPS file for fixing the ROM for use on the Smart Card. This patched ROM is the one I am now playing that seems to work without issue.

My question... has anyone else tried to play this game, and has anyone else run into similar issues? Is there any more up to date fix than the 2014 patch I found? Or any kind of patch for the ROM or for the EZ-Flash Junior itself? romhacking seems to only have a couple play-quality improvement patches for the game (I ended up applying the script cleanup patch on my working ROM on the smart card, which is what I eventually played for an hour after getting things working).

Thank you very much for any help or additional info on this, much appreciated.

 

[Deleted member 546149]

Hi, did you try to play this on pc?

 

[Piplup87]

Hi, did you try to play this on pc?

no I didnt try any pc emulators.

is there a software compatibility list for the ezJunior that's maintained anywhere that I could be referencing?

 

[Deleted member 546149]

no I didnt try any pc emulators.

is there a software compatibility list for the ezJunior that's maintained anywhere that I could be referencing?

Try this

 

[Piplup87]

Try this

Thank you for posting the video.

That method for saving games in the video works perfectly for games like Pokemon, no concerns there at all. For Lufia 3, when making a record from the map screen, it doesn't work. The EZJunior just deletes all progress instead. There is still a save file in the "SAVER" folder for Lufia, but the save game is gone, and you can only select "new game" from the main menu.

 

[Deleted member 546149]

Thank you for posting the video.

That method for saving games in the video works perfectly for games like Pokemon, no concerns there at all. For Lufia 3, when making a record from the map screen, it doesn't work. The EZJunior just deletes all progress instead. There is still a save file in the "SAVER" folder for Lufia, but the save game is gone, and you can only select "new game" from the main menu.

No problem