UPDATE (again): Among the vast list of other things ruined by the onslaught of the pandemic, it looks like the R4i Gold 3DS Plus is no longer being manufactured. The company's website appears to be down and I can't find any listings for it anymore, so I have no choice but to instead recommend the card I featured in this video with RGF's YSMenu installed.

We live in a world where people are afraid to say they downloaded a 20 year old game out of fear Nintendo will sue them.

man this guy REALLY wants you to know he's not breaking any laws

"Now I'm 19 and I know not to download game roms from the internet." lol ok

one time i bought an r4 from california on ebay, shortly after the guy sent me an email telling me he'd been banned for selling it but he was still gonna ship it out anyways. worked great!

I remember I knew a kid at my school with an R4, seeing him scroll through all the games made me so jealous lol

I mean. You can just put your clock backwards and that fixes the "time bomb"

As soon as the video ends.. Aar: "Time to download all the games I wanted!"

"My ds backup folder" yeah... backups...

More like: "Now I'm 19 and I know not to... _admit I_ ...download game roms from the internet."

My friend had an R4 for his DSi when we were kids and I was absolutely mesmerized by it. I thought it was so cool to be able to play any game you wanted all on one cartridge. Fast-forward almost 10 years and he got an R4 for me for Christmas and it's been a blast. I definitely think it's a neat piece of hardware even if it's a little hard to know what you're getting.

“Now that I’m 19 and know not to download game rooms from the internet” Hi I’m 29 I still don’t know this. I’ll be enjoying the entire library on my hacked switch now.. maybe one day I’ll learn , lol

R4i Gold 3DS Plus or bust

maaan, this video hit me hard with nostalgia. When I got my first ds, my mom couldn't afford the games so she just gave me the R4 card and it came with a bunch of weird, third party games, but I loved them so much. And obviously the classics too, mario party, mario kart and all that. One day the thing just stopped working, and now I know why lol.

Tfw you realize you’ve been committing piracy throughout your childhood.

When I bought my first R4 flashcart I actually got it on Amazon, this was before the landmark court order than made them illegal to sell. You could buy it in pretty much every independent game store too until the law change, which also killed their business in chipping consoles. It was pretty crazy thinking back just how mainstream pirating had become at that time, I remember so many people with pirated PS2s, DS's and PSP's. As a broke kid though it saved me from playing the same games over and over and having a world of variety to choose from, like living in a game shop/blockbuster for real.

When my firmware expired all i needed to was mess with the clock and it worked again

"Now i know not to download ROMS from the internet" Sure thing buddy

Shout out to the Tunisian dude that called me boss-man who sold me an r4 card when I was like 9

I have that exact one. It has a built in "timebomb" meaning after one year, it will stop working. They make them this way so you buy a new one.

I have the same one. Aside from a timebomb (flashcard disables after a certain amount of time) that can be easily bypassed with YSMenu, I love it.

I was never familiar with this tech due to me never really having a DS until way later after it’s lifecycle. This was a super interesting video and I really enjoyed it.

Number 15: The $7 Nintendo DS Flash Cartridge

If anyone wants it (if anything, for the nostalgia of the crappy kernel's menus) I have a R4i 3D 2014 that still works with the original kernel it came with. I can dump an image of my SD card or something. It came bundled with my 3DS XL (downtown shops do that sometimes).

I used to have one of the original R4 for my DS when i was a child. I wonder where it has gone 😅

Hey everybody! Quick story that you might find interesting: when I was 4 I got a ds that came with an r4 card, it isn’t the gold. It is a solid black colour with no website to been seen. As a kid, it time-bombed on me (probably why the dude my parents bought it from was selling it) but maybe since it wasn’t the gold or the ds was already garbage, the card crashed and froze before it could completely Timebomb. I still have the original ds and r4 and am currently 15, 11 years later and it still boots up half the time. TLDR: my timebomb glitched because my ds is shit Clarification: the card runs completely fine, but if you try to cheat on any of the games or delete save files it totally crashes. It also isn’t the one for 3ds. Either I’m dumb (likely) or the card has been diffused (possible but not likely)

i remember when i was around 7 seeing an R4 at blockbuster for like $20 and my mom didn't want to buy it now I'm watching these videos to pick up an R4 to kill time during the quarantine and play games I couldn't afford when I was younger

$7 for that level of quality of a flash cartridge?! Now I feel guilty that I made my parents hand over $35 for a standard R4 Gold 2 with 100 games at the San Fernando Swapmeet which is basically a Mexican flea market when I was 8. Still, the cartridge contains some of the best childhood memories I have, New Super Mario Bros., Mario Kart DS, Super Mario 64 DS, both Mario and Luigi games made for DS, Pokémon HeartGold, Yoshi Touch and Go, Sonic Colors, Kirby Superstar Ultra, so much MORE that I loved. I was stoked as hell playing it on my DSi XL, and even more stoked when I had my friend homebrew my 3DS XL and it was now playable on there after I thought it would never boot up on my 3DS after many disappointing failed attempts before CFW was installed. I played the hell out of that cartridge for 5 years, but sadly the SD Card got stuck inside a random little hole in my PC and I was never able to get it out. I still have that cartridge, I keep it to remind me of better times inside my New 3DS XL case. I had CFW on the 3DS, and I had a bunch of my games on there through CFW, about 7. I later on found Twilight Menu++ and I reinstalled new ROMS of my childhood favorites, and I go back and play those sometimes more than my 3DS Games. Luigi’s Mansion? Yeah that’s great but it doesn’t have Baby Mario being guided by little clouds in the dawn sky. Smash 3DS is excellent but who the fuck cares because it doesn’t have Meta Knight’s Revenge. Yo-Kai Watch 2 is incredible, but I kinda have to leave it early since Typhlosion and Red Gyrados give me death glares when I play inferior RPGs.

I have the regular R4 cart and didn't know there was a time bomb, assumed something was wrong with my sd card so I went and got the latest kernel from the site and it worked. My cart is 2017 so kernels for the newer carts will work on the older carts. Also had an R4 as a kid but broke later on because I didn't take care of it lol

Is anyone going to talk about how the time bomb is literally just to make you update the kernel on the card? It's to account for firmware updates and such, it doesn't kill the card and you didn't need to buy a new card. I have an R4i for my DS Lite I've used since like 2010 and as soon as the bomb triggered I Googled the issue and low and behold you just had to download the new kernal, but at the time I think I ended up messing with the date just because I was at my grandma's without a computer.

I’d imagine you Publicly denounce roms and emulators, but let’s be real, can u buy a retail version of some of these games new anymore? No? Emulate it.

When I bought my DS lite, it came with an R4. Still works to this day, but my DS doesn't work as it used to, so someday I might have to get a new one to sue on my 3DS. I guess that's one of the reasons why Nintendo stopped doing business in my country. Most of us would just get a flashcard or crack the console to play games for free

"I do not condone downloading commercial games for free from the internet" The one guy who had piracy in mind: **sweats nervously**

I bought this same exact one from eBay. For it for my nephew and put a custom OS on it so the date bomb wouldnt exist I've had an Acekard 2i ever since I was in 1st grade. Let me tell you that was the day I got into this kind of stuff

Downloading games is fine. Don't try and be a white knight for the industry.

When I was a kid I really wanted this specific flash cart but I couldn't afford it because for some reason it was somewhere on the order of 40-50 bucks when I looked it up on eBay. Weird how its so cheap these days.

There seems to be a timebomb on mine as well. However, I just set the date back and it worked again.

My mother actually got me an R4 card back in the day. I have no idea where she got it from, she's usually super stuck up about doing illegal stuff like that so I have no idea why she even bought it, but it served me well for a few years haha.

I recently found my long lost R4 card for my ds lite and I was so excited to relive my childhood memories. However unfortunately not only is my ds lite lost but I remembered it broke years ago probably around the same time I lost the R4 card so alas I will have to wait to play my childhood games once again.

never had one. the DS Lite was my first console, when i got it back in 2006. ironically, i only was 2 years old at the time. still have the original navy blue DS i used to play on in 2007 - 2009.

I bought a similar one just to unbrick my 3DS (and ended up installing CFW on it as well. Yes, I bricked my 3DS before trying to do anything fancy on it (like running CFW or using flashcarts). How? Well, basically my 3DS turned out while I was playing Smash Bros. That's it.

Hell, I've had Black 2's anti piracy measures appear on my official cartridge... seeing them not happen on flashcart is always funny to me.

Same. When I was around 8, my dad had this employee. This nice lady gave me an R4 card with a bunch of DS and gameboy games, I just didn't know much about it back then. Twelve years later in 2020, I found my old Gameboy, DS Lite, a bunch of games, and the R4 Card.

They way that you introduce the video indicated that you had never tried a r4 card, and this is new to you, then at the end you say you have been using one for years!

You can find these everywhere in Peru, it was amazing using this on my 3DS

I experienced the time bomb on an R4 DS Lite 2018, all I did was update the firmware on website and it worked again.

A wave of nostalgia just hit me

the best thing is that once you get your ys menu all ready you can copy it to as many r4s you want and have friends over to play and stuff

the only game that ever came out on the DS is Club Penguin Elite Penguin Force no other DS game exists. Not even Nintendo released anything for it, sm my h.

Just set the date back if the firmware expires to the year stated on the r4 card which solves the problem eg:2016 flashcard change the ds or 3ds date and time to 2016

My uncle had a flash card made specifically for the newer D's (I had a dsi XL) I used to play like 500+ games, made up half my childhood 😢

Holy shit. I'm 19 this year and got my DS nearly at the same time as you. It was a pink DS Lite. I also got an email from a website where I bought a NS Xecuter injector a couple years back now, and they offered me a free R4 card if I bought their fake NS controller from their brand new amazon page, made a 5 star review and they would refund the sum. I only remembered that this r4 card was my childhood dream when I actually got it, since I couldn't get a new game all the time as a kid. Recently used it to homebrew my 3DS recently as well.

“I fully understand why my parents wouldn’t help me find it” *My dad bought one for me in a third world country*

Legend of Starfy ftw

My dad used to go to Pakistan every year and we asked for dis games back in 2009 and my dad bought back these things which has like 100 new games with it like Pokémon games and Mario and everything I still have it now

I bought an R4 gold card off of wish for $7 back in December 2019, it's the best DS cart I've ever bought. 300 games later it was definitely worth the money lol.

This was the first thing my dad bought me for my ds lol

jeez, i homebrewed my 3ds to find out you can do jack on it lol

When i was young my dad got my sister and I an edge card which is pretty much the same thing. While I'm sure he obtained all of the game roms on those cards illegally it was still the best thing to have as an oblivious 10 year old.

I had multiple r4 cards (complete with all data and like 125 games or so from the flea market) and i installed games on them, that i had played in my childhood. My niece still has one, also with games that i installed for her

This is honestly a really cool video

This is a really good video, got a bit nostalgia, I remember having something similar to that, when I was a child (and still to this day) legitimate games were crazy expensive, mostly because our currency is ass, and I only have that catridge, Whenever we want a new game, we got to write a list of games to a piece of paper, Go to the shady ass game store, and give the list to the one of the employees, That employee would then load the pirated games we wanted (we don't know it's pirated at the time, thought it was the real deal). Usually 1 pirated game is less than a dollar (maybe a couple of cents or even lower). So we usually got back home with like 30 different games. I never see a DSi here, So I only have a DS lite. It's actually ain't half bad. But mine loads faster, and the it can run almost every game (except for Black and White 2), the only problem is that it some games (like Rune factory 2) sometimes lags, making some of the bosses to be easier

I clicked on this not expecting to hear Aar's voice.

So this basically worked perfectly for "ALMOST EVERYTHING." Nice review and thanks for the information.

Dude my friend had one of these and I was always jealous becaus he had like 50 games and I had like 15!

Hey Aar! I'm a huge fan and playing MvM with you was amazingly fun! I'm so happy I ran into you!

I remember that when i was young i had a friend that had one of these with a copy of mario kart, but everytime you entered a race you had infinite stars, everyone just saw him as a god

I got a Nintendo DS with an R4 card already in it for my birthday when i got 7 years old. Because it came with the R4 and this was my first video game system, i thought having a card with around 80 games on it was completely normal on the DS. It took me like 6 years to realise that every game actually had to be bought individually, and i was absolutely shocked. didnt find out for so long because i didnt use the internet, and also my friends and my sister all had an R4 card for their DSes (i guess the moms of the kids might have recommended getting these to each other)

when i was 9 years old,I had my first ds with a R4 (i'm lucky)

The time bomb its not permanent, just go to the website and keep downloading the newer kernels. I have the 2014 R4 i just keep updating the files. Still using it on my dsi as of yesterday with current date

cave story wallpaper? alright.. this guy is a gamer.

"Now I'm 19 and know not to download game ROMs on the Internet." My brother in Christ, you so know there's are No-Intro full set torrents that exist, right?

10:00 is there a way to negate this yes, you go to the clock menu and change the date to 10 years ago done this three times and my card stil works

I don't understand why so many people are taking the "I did nothing wrong" line so seriously. That isn't what the video is about.

YOO GHOST TRICK IN THE BEGINNING! Glad that other people appreciate that game

First video I've watched on this channel. The way you described everything made it easy to understand I wish to watch more

My only question is, how do you dump game files from an official cartridge? xD

UPDATE: After having failure issues with Walmart's onn SD cards, I can no longer recommend them. Please pick up a more reputable brand if you opt to use it in a flash cart. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hM9lnLl1srWyf2g.html

this is probably the best video for the cheap r4 gold carts

I never knew that these things were valuable. I got one from a friend I never knew that it does these things.

Downloading roms isn't that bad dude

there is another downside for flash cart, for pokemon games, you can't trade locally to another legit game because this use infrared from the legit card it self. also you can't use the poke transporter on it.

Help me, I can't stop rewatching this video

The R4 was actually sold in shops in Ireland like on the high street and were very common so common The National broadcaster actually did a a whole programme on it

“I don’t condone downloading commercial games.” gay

I got the same 7$ card you did and didn't know about the time bomb, glad you mentioned it.

I remember seeing one of these at a convention as a kid and being blown away. Unlimited games? All the games? For free?

This actually works great. Tested on Pokémon Soul Silver and custom distribution roms for mythicals.

All I'm going to say is if you download a ds rom or for any console that is discontinued, it won't be a huge problem as no one makes money from it anymore as it's discontinued. Sure you shouldn't download illegal roms but if it's discontinued then it won't affect anyone, it will be unlikely to get caught by Nintendo as like Aar said, they simply do not care anymore as they ended the production of the DS a long time ago. If you are downloading an illegal rom for the Switch or PS5 or for any console that is still in production, then you seriously need to delete it as that will affect the company as they aren't getting the money from it, you will have a higher chance from getting fined and the company will catch you, for example, when you pirate roms or mod the switch, Nintendo will permanently ban your Nintendo ID and your switch from playing online, it's a good anti-piracy/mod measure and I'm impressed. It will be likely that overtime that measure will not be able to do anything as hackers are becoming more advanced every day. So, if you download a rom from a console that's discontinued then it won't do anything really, but if you download a rom from a console that is still in production you need to delete it as you can get fined or arrested for Piracy depending what you're pirating.

I have a regular R4 I "borrowed" from a class friend in 2011-ish. Still use it today and nothing has changed. Thanks for reminding that you can put emulators on this thing, too. Still need to do that.

Saw your vid on the flashcarts reddit. Very good video. I will be subbing.

And here I am, still using the ORIGINAL R4 card. Never knew they were that rare....

Thanks for the info about the timebomb, I ordered a flash cart recently and was glad to learn about it before the error occurred

Bro I was like 5 and I had a DS and I'm pretty sure I still have my Flash Cartridge it had like so many games on it. I got it from a game store with the games predownloaded onto them. Really cool to see that little part of my childhood was so significant

I had a Cyclo DS back in the day. It had some extra features like cheats, and save states. It was pretty great.

As a kid I remember all of my friends had an R4 and I always wanted one, but they didn't sell it where I lived, if you wanted one you either ordered it online or travelled, and ordering online was still shady back then so I never had one, finally I got myself one 3 years ago, It felt like a childhood dream finally accomplished

When I was like 12 I found a ds lite on ebay from hong kong that claimed to come with a massive amount of games and it was such a good deal!!!! Dad please buy it for me!!!! It was a bootleg with an r4 card. Didnt include most of the games listed, but I was introduced to some games I never would have played, like Sprung and some very early DS puzzle games.

Finally!!! A great video about this topic! I am searching info for a long time about a "2013 R4 Gold" I own. It doesn't work anymore on all 3dsxl systems i own. Unfortunately my kids turned the wifi on at one point, and Nintendo installs updates. i was told these updates make the Card unable. But now you are telling about the Time Bomb, i am blown away! i got v11 to v13 on the DS systems. i tought the R4 would still work on the v8 DS software. i almost tried downgrading the DS with the help of some shady KZfaq movies. i probably would have bricked it. I am so Lucky i didnt proceed with that. Thanks! I hope someone will find a way some day, to get these cards up running again. Modern Vintage Gamer also has a great video about jailbreaking the DS! Cheers

I use the EDGE flash cart and love it and still using it until now

Ahh yes the NDS flash carts. I had a very obscure one called the CycloDS. It was by far the best imo since they had super fast updates for the anti-piracy measures back in the day and the UI was much nicer than the Wood/R4 cards of the era. I bought it when the DS lite was out and it still works fine on my New 3ds XL. Makes for one solid system for emulation as well.