CycloDS is one of the latest Slot-2 flashcarts avaiable at the market. I'm going to review the Mini-SD version with a Kingston Mini SD 1GB card.
The CycloDS box is made of some plastified card box, and inside there is only the CycloDS, no instructions or CD. Here's the details from the back of the box:
"CycloDS (Mini SD) is a multi-functional Mini SD adapter cartridge for NDS which allows you to play games, watch movies, listen to MP3's, view images, read e-books and enjoy the vast collection of homebrew applications avaiable for NDS and GBA.
Using CycloDS is easy! Just follow these simple steps: 1. Copy your games, media and homebrew to a Mini SD card. 2. Insert the Mini SD card into your CycloDS cartridge. 3. Plug the CycloDS cartridge into the GBA slot on your NDS or NDS Lite. 4. Turn on your handheld and the CycloDS operating system will be displayed on-screen.
CycloDS is capable of playing the following types of games:
+ Nintendo DS games + Gameboy Advance games + Both Gameboy Advance and Nintendo DS Homebrew games + Sega MasterSystem games + Nintendo games + PC-Engine games
NOTE: Must be used in conjuction with the CycloKey DS or a Flashed Nintendo DS."
Hardware
The CycloDS is made of the same plastic of GBA cartridges, and it has the same EXACT size as one. The cart slides perfectly in and out so as the Mini-SD card in his slot.
Software
What's going on Cyclops Team? Where is the Firmware of CycloDS ? And if it was only that, but where are the updates for the Rom Patcher ? Thanks to that i needed to use the SuperCard Patcher for the latest games. In the official webiste you can find CycloDS documentation, CycloDS ROM Patcher v1.0 (for both MicroSD and MiniSD), CycloDS DLDI Device File and Moonshell 1.6 for CycloDS (with DPGtools), which i am going to talk later on.
Menu
When i turned the Nintendo DS on, i saw that the CycloDS didnt like my Mini SD, so i had to format it to FAT. The CycloDS menu is very simple, but not skinnable. The menu is composed by 4 sections: List (where you can boot your games and homebrews), Saver (is used to save your games with the GameBoy Advance Backups), Options (To turn on or off "Auto Load Saver" and "Enable set emu options) and Help (where you can see the key combinations to enter cheats, to do the real time save and how to return to the menu). Then i asked myself... "Where can i play music, read books, and that stuff ?" I came up with the original documentation of CycloDS where it said that it needed MoonShell to boot all this kind of things.
Game Compatibility
NDS:
- 42 All-Time Classics (E)- Works - Actua Pool (E)- Boots, but says that data is corrupted and crashes - Animal Crossing Wild World (E)- Works - Asphalt Urban GT2 (U)- Works - Bleach 2nd DS (J)- Works, but does not save - Castlevania Portrait of Ruin (U)- Works and no intro lag! - Daigasso Band Brothers (J)- Works - Diddy Kong Racing (U)- Works, I had to use the Supercard patcher - Elite Beat Agents (U)- Works - Hotel Dusk Room 215 (U)- Works - Mario Kart DS (E)- Works - Mario Slam Basketball (E)- Works - New Super Mario Bros (E)- Works - Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! (J)- Works - Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam (E)- Works (lags when there are many players on the screen), I had to use the SC patcher - Ultimate Spider-Man (E)- Works - Yoshi's Island (U)- Works - Yu-Gi-Oh! GX Spirit Caller (U)- Works
GBA:
- Ghost Rider (U)- Works - Super Mario Advance (E)- Works - Super Mario Advance 4 (E)- Works - Final Fantasy Tactics Advance (U)- Works, has huge slowdowns, and other problems. - Mario Party Advance (E)- Doesnt Work - F-Zero Climax (J)- Works, has huge slowdowns, and other problems. - Metal Slug Advance (U)- Works, has huge slowdowns, and other problems. - GTA Advance (U)- Works, has huge slowdowns, and other problems.
Homebrew Compatibility
- AmplituDS- Doesn't boot - Babyfoot Beta 2 - Works - Beup 0.3 FINAL- Works, use a special version for both SuperCard and CycloDS - Comic Book DS V2.0 - Works - Jeux de poches - Works - Licks Media Player (LMP-ng) Beta - Works (I used the CycloDS DLDI file to patch) - Moonshell 1.6 - Works, avaiable at the official website - NitroTracker 0.3 - Doesn't Boot
A copy?
Most people already know this, but CycloDS is just a COPY of SuperCard made by the SuperCard Team, both firmware and patcher from SuperCard Mini SD work on it, and if you do so, it will automatically turn into a SuperCard and will perform 100% like it.
Conclusion
CycloDS turns out to be just a COPY, and not a very good one by the way of SuperCard Team, but not only that but it doesnt provide as much updates (did they even update once?) or its over priced compared to both SuperCard and the rest of the FlashCards on the market nowadays.
PROS
+ Good rom compatibility for Nintendo DS + Excellent build quality + Easy rom patching process + Almost all homebrews runs
CONS
- Bad compatibility for GameBoy Advance, as there are so many games that dont even run or have slowdown, and other problems - No rom patcher updates - No firmware updates - Menu not skinnable - Overpriced - Direct COPY of SuperCard
Overall Score
65%
DS-Scene would like to thank Team Cyclo for sending us a sample of the CycloDS Mini-SD for reviewing purposes.
They were very late off the bandwagon and copying Supercard did not do them any favours. I agree though, even back in December this was outdated. Surprised we have not seen a slot 1 solution from the Cyclops team. I suppose they are concentrating on Wii now.
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Wed, February 21st, 2007 at 07:17
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