EZ Flash Vi OFFICIAL Review!

Hello guys, this is shadowhunter93. This is my first review in the big leagues of flash cart reviewing… Kinda nerve racking. This whole review talk is boring me, so let’s plunge into the review. This EZ Flash Vi was provided to me by one PharaohsVizier, my new best friend round the online world these days. It came in the mail yesterday and I’ve been tinkering with it ever since then. I think now I’ve got a good handle on this cart, so let’s get on with the review!

—INTRODUCTION—

The EZ Flash team was established during the turn of the millenium, during the year 2000. They are well known for high quality products with great service and excellent performances. Starting since the era of the GameBoy Advance, they have created products that expand on the Game Boy Advance’s ability, by providing it the ability to play backups of Game Boy Advance games. Currently, the EZ Flash Team has been brought to its fifth generation of EZ Flash carts, with the newest cart being the EZ Flash Vi, which runs on a Nintendo DS Phat (first generation), the Nintendo DS Lite (second generation), and of course, the Nintendo DSi, even going as far as bypassing Nintendo’s dreaded firmware 1.4 update mere DAYS after Nintendo let the firmware out!!!!

In my opinion, Team EZ Flash can talk the talk and walk the walk. They do whatever they say, by creating products that satisfy the needs of the consumer. Compared to their first release long ago, things have really improved, such as Micro SDHC support from the EZ Flash V Plus. The EZ Flash DS Generation carts, like the EZ Flash V, are well known for their uses with the EZ Flash 3 in 1, a well known device used to play GBA games on a Nintendo DS Lite slot 2.

—DESIGN—

Well, I got my new toy from PharaohsVizier a couple days ago, and I’ve been toying with it ever since. The packaging was beyond superb! He’s a nice fellow and shipped it to me in a nice standard letter envelope. When I got it, I almost crushed the poor cart tripping on the driveway in happiness. I tear it open and out pops a pristine EZ Flash Vi, ready to be exploited and written about.

I wonder what the idea was behind this item. Item had no freebies… 🙁

OK, I’ll be very honest, but I thought this was the one with the freebie stuff in it. Turns out it’s the new packaging from the EZ Team, and looks like it gets simpler by the day. From a box of freebies to the simple blister package. Well, since I did request it, I get what I get. No biggie. As you can tell in the photo, it looks different from the one released a few months ago with the white sticker. Now, it looks very simple and a tad too plain in my book. I missed the other appearance. It looked much more professional… 🙁 To be honest, that sticker looked a lot better than this, but you can’t judge an item by its cover… but this guy comes jam-packed with tons of unique features which I will get to in a while. But as a taster, it comes with RTS, which stands for Real Time Save. What is Real Time Save?! Well, RTS is a unique add-on to only a few flashcarts that allows the user to save virtually ANYWHERE in their games. This means saving during the beginning of a hard Pokemon battle. Some view this function as cheating, others not so much…

Why did they go from this one to the current one?

Check out the SD holder!

Sorry for the blurry image…

Holy crap, I got off topic. Back to the design. This cart is highly durable, much better than some of the carts with clips, like the Itouch DS, which was kind of a flop. Well, the cart also boasts a side Micro SD holder, making the cart look like a real DS game.The chip also has a small bump in the middle of the sticker, signifying the chip. Not too bad. It slides in perfectly nicely. However, my little concern is when the card goes in, it’s a millimeter uneven on one side… I don’t know if my cart is made like that or whether all are made like it… but oh well.

—SOFTWARE—

Well, the EZ Team has lots of stuff to offer to us! According to the card’s label, it has support for all DS systems, RTS and RTG (I’ll cover it later) and all the other necessities found on most Slot 1 carts. It also nowadays uses Moonshell 2 (courtesy of Moonlight) as its user interface, similar to the M3 Sakura firmware series. Being a previous owner of the EZ Flash V Plus, switching from the Moonshell 1.0+ series to 2.0 Beta series was quite a switchover. The Moonshell 1 loader was horrible! It was really clunky and hard to navigate. There was lag on the menu. Games took forever to load. When you start the cart, you wait for a nasty information scrolling screen to pass. So ugly. Now, with the EZ 2.0 RC Build, you just stare at a splash screen and it loads quickly. Not as fast as my Acekard 2i, but reasonable enough. Games load rather nicely as well. It beats a 10 second wait  for a simple Mario DS Game.

Picture of EZ 2.0 User interface.

Well, I apologize for my poor photography skills. This is why I never intend to be a photographer when I grow up. This skin is  not bad. It’s better than before. And their skinning software is really fun to use, though I don’t get how to use it. It looks like a load of fun, and I heard it is. I’ll post links later for you guys to play with…

And, software looks like Firmware to me, so let’s dive into the firmware. The release of the EZ RC Beta series has greatly increased the popularity of this cart, kudos to them! Though not perfect, they are still surprisingly VERY STABLE!!! They feature fixes for games with anti-piracy, like Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver, and other RTS related fixes. Now be warned, the RTS is kinda unstable and clunky, freezing every so often for me. The firmware consists of an EZShell folder and a BIN file. Not too much for a cart. I remember the R4 was a ton of crap to put in. Don’t forget, the EZ Flash cheats work with a USRCHEAT.DAT file (found on GBATemp) that is put in the EZShell folder. (Thanks PV for that heads up) The latest EZ RC Beta build is RC6, released September 18, 2009. Be sure to look for that!

Here’s a glimpse of the skinning tool… and do NOT ask about the wallpaper.

This skinning tool can do all sorts of stuff. You can modify just about any section of the skin.

The EZ Flash Vi’s In-game RTS/RTG Menu is a nice thing to have. By pressing L, R, A, and B, you open up the real time menu, which is a tad slow. You can save anywhere in game and  that takes a long time too. Here is what you should expect to see…

How simple can you guys get?

The functions are Save, Load, Reset, Walkthrough 1 and Walkthrough 2.

—FIRST USES—

Well, I use a DSi. So, you go to the menu, look for the game icon. Since I updated to 1.4U, I have to look for a lame and ugly Tak: The Ultimate Juju Challenge icon on my screen. How nice. When you successfully load the cart, you’ll see a nice blue EZ Flash Vi screen, followed by a white and yellow splash that tells you the website of the EZ team.

Well, I was actually upset at the User Interface. It’s still as UGLY as ever, with the plain grey background and the icky buttons. I don’t know, but the R4 was better than that, and that sucker is a few years old now…

Memories… of a blurry and ugly skin.

Oh my gosh… what do we have here. What the hell happened to the bottom? Still looks so old and ugly! Like father like son, I suppose?  I changed that with a nice Windows Vista theme (hehe) and it looks SICK! On the top, you have fancy folders and your games… move up and down with the Directional pad and press buttons on the sides to change settings. OMG. What a shocker! Find the game you like? Press the LAUNCH button on screen or the A button. Wait a few seconds and BOOM! Welcome to the game! And for those that hate my photo skills, the launch button is the blue strip.

Personally, I’d pick the latter. In my opinion, I’d rather find my games somewhere rather than pay 40 bucks for what may be garbage.

—FUNCTIONALITY—

Well, according to their label, it has SDHC support with no lag. So, I test my 8GB Class 4 Kingston from Japan, no lags whatsoever. From what I’ve been dealing with, all of my games run perfectly on this boy, and with pleasing results. I kinda wish it had auto anti-piracy bypass like AKAIO 1.5… But whatever. As long as Pokemon Heart Gold and Soul Silver run, who cares?! Later games like Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days do run, so don’t panic. so far, no game failures yet!

A picture of Pokemon Soul Silver if you don’t believe me.

Here’s some more proof: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days US on EZ Flash Vi.

As of right now, the games that I have tested have loaded 100% no errors, just as described. Although I am not a hige homebrew fan, quite frankly, I believe that they’re kinda boring (sorry to the devs) but I do have some, and I tested them, no problems. In fact, they went faster than when I had it in my Acekard! Now I just need to perfect the cheat database and get it rolling. For some reason whenever I start the cheats, the window freezes up. I’m still working it out and when I do I’ll probably update with that little tidbit. What I really care about at this point in time is the game functionality, I’m not picky with cheats, because sometimes they spoil the game and ruin the adventure. Trust me ladies and gentlemen, when I see cheats, there is a 99.99999% chance I will be tempted to pick it up. Oddly enough, I haven’t picked up codes for Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. But if you would like a testing list of all the games that I have tested, please look below!

WORKING Games

Pokemon Heart Gold

Pokemon Soul Silver

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

New Super Mario Brothers DS

Mario Kart DS

Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin (holy hell am I lucky or did they fix already? Haven’t kept up with the EZ scene lately…)

Tetris DS

Pokemon Platinum

Dragon Quest IX: Hoshizora no Mamoribito

Disgaea DS

…and the list grows. I tested 99% of my DS games, all working. That last percent should work perfectly fine. I don’t see why not. Tested NDSMail, DSOrganize, Moonshell 2, Nesds, all working fine!

Heeeeeere’s Moonshell 2! Been slightly upgraded too!

NOT WORKING

None (as of right now)

—OTHER THOUGHTS, RECOLLECTIONS—

Well, I actually am shocked! This cart is sooooo underrated it’s almost sad. Whenever problems with this card (rarely any) arise on the ‘temp, no one knows what the heck to do because no one has this card. I see discussions of the M3i Zero, the Supercard DSOneI cart, and a whole load of others, but this one never hogs the spotlight. Even when the GBATemp administrators and moderators post updates, hardly anyone comments about it. I remember the Acekard 2i got a huge spotlight 2 weeks ago when the AKAIO 1.5 firmware got released.

…And oh! I forgot!! I forgot to explain RTG! For those who don’t know what RTG is, it stands for Real Time Guide. What is RTG? Well, have you ever wanted to take those GameFAQ walkthroughs and be able to use them while playing? This cart allows just that! With the addition of RTG, this made the EZ Flash Vi a much better cart, in my opinion. Doesn’t that sound so much better than wasting precious electricity and looking up guides on the computer? This economy sucks and we need every penny!

…Well that’s enough of me ranting for a second there. In conclusion, this cart is great, it has features that can distinguish this cart from others, it is perfect as a mini-media player and perfect for the person who seeks to play backups of their favorite NDS Games. The only thing I have to say otherwise is the cart’s pricing. It fluctuates a lot. On some websites like DealExtreme, it goes dirt cheap. On others, it’ s probably the most expensive, save for the IPlayer DS. From what I’ve seen, it’s average price is…ehh… $25 USD for me. I’m certainly no pro at converting money around but yeah. Just give or take a few dollars and you get a price. I like this cart, but there are DEFINITELY some features that can be improved, and many little things that can make the cart better (*COUGH COUGH* The default theme!!!! *COUGH cough COUGH* God, I feel awful with this cough)

Well, here is what you guys have been waiting for. After a long review, here is the scoring for the EZ Flash Vi, developed by Team EZ Flash! Scores are out of TEN points for each category, except for the Functionality section, which will be out of 15, and Random gimmicks, which I will explain a tad later on, out of FIVE points. And without further ado…

SCORE FOR EZ FLASH Vi:

DESIGN: 10/10

SOFTWARE: 10/10

FIRST USE (or Use): 9/10

FUNCTIONALITY: 14/15

RANDOM GIMMICKS: 4/5

FINAL SCORE: 47/50

Great cart, thank you to the EZ Flash Team for designing it and a really big thanks to PharaohsVizier of DSDatabase.org for providing me with this cart and making this review possible! The team can be found at http://www.ezflash.cn

And for those who may need help with their EZ Flash Cart: here are some handy dandy download links for you

EZ Flash Vi’s EZ 2.0 RC6 BETA 6 Firmware

http://www.ezflash.cn/zip/2.0RC6_9-18.rar

EZ Flash Skinning Tool

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=79F5FR1C

And now, my instruction manual for the EZ Flash Vi, written by me!

Step 1. Download the firmware in the link above. NOTE: May not be current firmware!

Step 2. Using WinRAR, extract the firmware files. You should end up with a folder called EZShell or something along those lines and a ez5sys.BIN file.

Step 3. Insert your Micro SD into the computer, via adapter or whatever.

Step 4. Take the EZ5Shell folder and the .BIN file and drag to the ROOT of the memory card.

Step 5. Download games from who knows where and place the EXTRACTED .NDS file in a folder somewhere on the root.

Step 6. Repeat step 5 for all games, and when finished, remove Micro SD from computer

Step 7. If you have a DSi with 1.4 firmware installed, you should see a TAK: The Ultimate Juju Challenge Icon on the DSi Menu, or the DS Lite Menu.

If you don’t have a DSi, you should just see either the TAK icon or an EZ Flash Vi icon from the EZ Team.

Step 8. Load the cart, an ugly skin should appear.

Step 9. Navigate the cart, press A on the folder to open it up, press A on a game to launch. Don’t forget to explore the other features of the cart!

Step 10. Congratulations! You have now finished setting up your EZ Flash Vi!

Hey Pharaoh, if you read this, do not criticize the lack of photos yet. I compiled a ton of them into a nice gallery that people can view. The link is below! This gallery took an hour to upload… Hard to individually sort each photo out. Ugggh.

—PHOTO GALLERY—

http://img27.imageshack.us/gal.php?g=dscn0246v.jpg

Holy cow. My computer is slow as hell! Wow, it took forever. I was originally gonna put images here but that takes even longer. So, if you want to see  a general idea of what the EZ Flash Vi does, click that link.

Well, this has certainly been a very fun review to write. I want to thank PharaohsVizier for his kindness in giving me this cart and to the EZ Team for making such a review even possible! I hope that this review proves to many that I am indeed a capable reviewer and I hope to be able to serve you guys better. Helpful criticisms and comments are welcome, just feel free to reply here or there. I found this cart to be a blast and in my opinion, it sometimes can beat the Acekard 2i because it has RTS and RTG! I’d go for it any day and you should to!

Join the pack of flashcarts that shall continually grow! And my camera officially needs a tune-up…