Hello and welcome to a new video!
Today you'll see a review of the CycloDS iEvolution.
This is a Flashcard for Nintendo DS Systems that was produced by Team Cyclo.
The card was annouced in 2010, but was released in 2011.
The special thing about this card is that it's the only Flashcard available that supports the DSi Mode of DSi and 3DS systems.
That's also the Name-Giving Part of the card.
The DSi Mode is special because the CPU is higher clocked in this mode and the Games get more RAM.
Also, they can for example access the Cameras of DSi and 3DS Systems
All Games released by Nintendo that were released as "DSi-Enhanced" or "DSi-Only" are running in this Mode.
On other flashcards like the DSTWO you are only able to run the "DSi-Enhanced" games in DSLite Mode
But with this card they run in DSi-Mode
Unfortunately. Team Cyclo disappeared 6 months after releasing the card
And because of this, and because the card isn't produced anymore, it's very difficult to find one nowadays.
I ordered mine on shop01media (Link is Description); The Shop gave me a discount for this review, thank you very much again!
Now let's take a look at the packaging.
Unlike the compatition like the DSTWO+, the packaging is made out of metal.
This gives the card a very premium feel and shows that the team cared about their products before releasing them.
The back shows the official specs.
Interestingly, the back doesn't say anything about the special DSi-Mode,
it only says the standard-function every modern card should have.
The card supports microSDHC cards up to 32gb.
The front shows the evolution of humans, the last step is replaced with the "i" of the iEvo.
Compared to the packaging of the DSTWO, the packaging is smaller, but still good because of the metal-factor.
Now let's look inside the packaging. The box can be opened relatively easy
After that a half-transparent black inlay is visible. You can see the parts through the inlay.
Here we have a cheap microSD reader,
I wouldn't trust it because it has no safety parts on it's PCB, also it's slow. If you can use alternatives, I'd highly recommend using them
Then we have the update/flash dongle. The DSiEvo comes delivered without a firmware, whitch makes it 100% legal OOTB.
To flash it, you have to download 2 special games, and you must use them to build the firmware out of it. Check the description for a tutorial.
And last but not least, we have the core, the CycloDS iEvolution
Let's look at the card more detailed.
The sticker shows the iEvolution logo, that we have already seen on the box.
When light falls on the sticker, you can see a bump under the sticker.
The Bump is a FPGA, which makes the card functional in DSi-Mode.
On the side there is a tiny clearance. I wasn't able to press it down to make it disappear, but it's not sharp and doesn't hurt you.
It also doesn't interference with the game-slot, so don't worry.
The plastic is not cheap and it doesn't feel like the card will fall apart anytime soon.
The microSD Slot is unlike the one from the DSTWO without a spring.
This has the advantage that the card will probably have a longer lifespan.
Some springs from DSTWO-Slots broke over the time, making the card unuseable.
The contacts on the back are creditable, they are longer then average and also seperated each.
Especially for R4-Cards, the contacts are short and not seperated, causing contact issues.
The other side has an indent, probably to give the card more grip.
That was all for the design, now let's go to a DS.
Because the card is relatively old, we have to check several things before we can use it.
Because the team disappeared and therefore no updates were released for the card,
Nintendo blocked the DS-Mode on FW 1.4.2 and the DSi-Mode on FW 1.4.3 on DSi Systems.
On 3DS Systems the card doesn't run on Firmwares above 2.0.
So therefore we have to bypass the restrictions.
Thankfully, thats relatively easy on 3DS Systems. With the Luma CFW installed, the card runs flawlessly.
Another advantage is that, once installed, we don't have to patch anything else, the card then runs fine out of the Home Menu.
And after flashing, the card has a "MechAssault Phantom War" Icon for the DSLite Mode. And after we start the card...
...we do enter the main menu of the card after the loading Screen.
Here we have three options. The first one is to start Games/Homebrew.
The 2nd is Moonshell, hidden under "Media" and then we have "Settings and Misc"
Here we have many options to configurate the card.
We'll look into the option "Switch to DSi mode" later in this Review.
"Icon Size" changes the Size of the icons in the Games-Menu; You can set the apperance of Bookmarks.
The Save-Mode, if games don't save correctly.
A Battery Saver. I haven't tested it and can't tell how much it acually saves.
You can change the Language. The Translation to German is good and not made with Google Translate or something similar.
You can change skins.There's also a random skin function that changes the skin everytime you reboot the card.
With a Rumble pack from Nintendo or an EZ-Flash 3in1 you can activate the Rumble-Function of DS-Games here
Obviously, you can only this on a DS or DS Lite because it needs the Slot2.
"24-Hour Clock" activates the 24h instead of 12h Clock and "Last Played Bookmark" shows the last played game as bookmark in the main menu.
"Old Cheat Prompt" gives you a prompt that asks you if you want to activate cheats after you chose a game.
"Show all files" shows all files in the Games Menu, not only .nds Files
I don't know what Delete Related Files stands for :/. It had no effect for me.
With "Enhanced Menu Button" you can change the Keycombo that you have to press to open the Real Time Menu of the iEvo In-Game
"Last Played Buttons" let's you chose a Keycombo. When you press this combo during the card-startup, you'll be booted into the game you last played.
With "Sort Ingore Number", numbers in File-Names get ignored and only the letters will be used to select the files.
When you activate "GBASupport" GBA games on your iEvo will be booted over a compatible Slot2 Flashcard when you choose them.DS and DSL only too.
I won't show you Moonshell in this tutorial, if you want to you use it, I have placed a link to a tutorial in the description.
When we choose the "Games and Homebrew" Menu, we see a Menu which looks similar to the Wood-Menu
You can see Folders and Roms here (other files too if you activated the setting)
And when you now choose a game...
... you can do several operations with the game
First of all you can do basic File Operations (Copy, Move, Delete, Paste)
In the "Info" Tab you see several Informations to the ROM
Then you can set your favorite Games as Bookmark
With Enable Cheats and Select Cheats you can activate cheats in general for the game and choose your Cheats you want to activate in-game.
In Settings, you can create a RTS Slot. Unlike the DSTWO does, you have to create one manually first. Otherwise it's not usable in the Real Time Menu.
Also in Settings, you can change between seperate Save Slots (which seperates Saves as multiple sav files on the SD) and change the size if Auto somehow fails.
Now we check the game compatibility in detail. I'll use Mario Kart DS here.
Under settings you can now create the RTS Slot if you haven't already and if you want to use Real-Time Save.
I already did it for this Game.
If you have ever created a RTS File for one specific Game, you won't have to repeat the procedure over and over, only if you delete the file from ths SD Card.
You can now select Cheats you want under "Select Cheats". This is also possible in the In-Game Men uafter you started the Game.
Because I activated "Old Cheat Prompt", the card now asks me if I want to activate Cheats for this Session. I deny this.
And after the short loading screen the card boots the game.
And with the Keycombo from "Enhanced Menu Buttons", which is L+R+A+B+X+Y by default, the In-Game Menu pops up.
Now you can choose several options here.
You can go back to the game, you can activate slow motion, and you can do a Real-Time Save State or Load an existing one.
Also you can go back to the Menu of the Card (Soft-Reset)
You can only adjust the Brightness on a DS Lite or use Cheats if you activated the Option before you started the Game.
First let's look at the Slowmotion feature. You have different Levels to choose; 50%, 33% or 25%
Let's try 50%, and you can clearly see that the Animations run slower.
Compared to the DSTWO, I experienced less Graphics and Sound Bugs with the iEVO.
So, now I deactived the Slow-Mo and I'll create a Real-Time Savestate
This takes a short amount of time, and when we now do some progress in the game...
... and then choose "Real-Time Load" in the Menu
We get back to the point where we saved
Unfortunately, compared to the DSTWO, you can only manage 1 instead of 4 Slots at the same time.
And then we can go back to the Card Menu. Notice how this happens without a flickering, that feels very professional.
R4 Cards and not even the DSTWO are able to do this without Flickering.
If you want to use DSi-Enhanced games in DSLite Mode, it'll work just fine. However, they only run with the DS-Lite Restrictions then.
Pokemon Black2/White2 also have the well known XP-Bug where you don't get XP after battles.
This also occurs on Cards with older Wood-Versions (e.g. R4i Dual Core from r4isdhc.com.cn)
However, you can manually patch them with a PC, and after that the games will run fine.
The XP-Bug doesn't occur on Black1/White1 thankfully.
Let's have a look at Homebrew Compatibility next.
Homebrew using FAT and NitroFS Filesystems are both supported.
Let's use GameYob as our Testing Application.
Now we see the Games which means DLDI Patching works automatically (StarGate doesn't support it in 2018 lol)
"Quit to Launcher" brings us to the DSi or 3DS Menu, a DSLite will just shut off.
Now we'll check the feature of the card which makes the card worth buying for some people today...
...The DSi Mode.
As mentioned before, you can choose the mode in the Settings.
To make this possible, Cyclo uses an exploit in a DSi-Enhanced Game to boot itself in DSi-Mode.
If you want to use DSi-Games, you have to watch out for a few things.
Some of the DSi-Enhanced games floating around the Internet aren't dumped correctly, they don't contain the DSi-Part.
If we choose the Option to switch, the card tells you to Soft-Restart the System.
Now the Card Icon has changed to a French Version of "My Cook Coach" for European Systems.
If we start it, wel'll first see the Game booting up...
... but then the exploit triggers and the card get's started.
I collected some properly dumped DSi-Roms and we'll test some of them. All these games support the DSi-Mode officially, however...
... Although they include everything to run theoretically, the card doesn't run some games in the list.
First we'll check "Art Academy"
The Game itself runs fine, but the Real-Time Menu doesn't work, which is the case for most DSi-Games.
To add something to the DSi-Parts: The iEvo tells you if your file isn't dumped properly.
If you get this Message, as seen in the embedded picture, your ROM doesn't have it and you should download one that includes it.
The ROM will run fine in DSLite Mode if it's a DSi-Enhanced Game.
Our 2nd Game is "Chronicles of Mystery The Secret Tree of Life"
Same Situation as before, The Game runs fine but the Real-Time Menu doesn't work.
Then I check "Classic Word Games"
And The Game runs fine, but like before the Real-Time Menu doesn't open.
Next one is "Club Penguin". In the Settings you see that RTS is unavailable for all DSi-Games, even if the Menu works.
And here, the Real-Time Menu works, and you can Cheat if Codes are available, use the Slow-Mo Function or go back to the card.
Then we have "Art of Murder"
Game works fine, no Real-Time Menu.
Reaching the letter L, we have "Lost Identities"
Again, the Game works, but Real-Time menu doesn't.
Reaching more famous Games, we have "Mario vs Donkey Kong 1 - Mini Land Mayhem!"
Sadly, after the Save Init, we just stuck at two black screens with no working Real-Time Menu.
Here we have Pokemon Black 1
The Game works, but...
... do we see the Firmware Bug of the iEVO in a second
Notice that I activated WiFi on this N3DS (Orange LED)
But if I want to use the C-Gear, I just get an Error Message ("Wireless Connection is deactivated")
The Firmware of the iEvolution doesn't allow Wireless in any DSi Game unfortunately. This is an unfixed bug that will never be fixed obviously.
However...
...you see Three Battery Bars (much special).
This is a good indicator that the Game runs in DSi-Mode because it only shows 2 bars in DSLite-Mode-
This is because the DSi Mode shares a more accurate Battery Level Indicator to the Game.
In DSi-Mode, battles between Wild Pokemons and Trainers, especially battles with more than 2 Pokemons, run smoother due to the higher clocks.
But sadly, Softreset/The Real-Time Menu doesn't work for the Game.
Going towards the End, "Sonic Classic Collection"
Runs, but Soft-Reset/Real-Time Menu doesn't work
"Spongebob's Boating Bash"
Runs, with a non-working Soft-Reset/Menu
The Video Game from "The Biggest Looser"
Unfortunately ends with 2 white screens.
Soft-Reset doesn't work
So when you want to use the Exploit in this Game by Team SALT to dump the systems CID, which is necessary to decrypt your DSi NAND, you can't use this card.
Last but not least, "TRON Evolution"
Runs, but no Soft-Reset
The iEVO also allows you something that doesn't normally work,
namely running DS-Lite Games in DSi-Mode.
This works for games that were only made for DS-Lite, not having a DSi-Part on their Retail Cards.
I'll check "Trackmania Turbo"
And it runs fine, with a working Real-Time Menu.
And although it works here, I still wouldn't recommend to use it.
Many games, although they have reduced loading times, start to get graphic glitches in-game, freeze, or maybe don't start at all.
The Games simply weren't developed to run under those conditions. If it works for your game, enjoy the shorter loading time, but don't use it as standard for every game.
Now let's come to a conclusion. Let's start with the positive things.
The OS. The Ui is modern and clean, transitions are glitch free, which is unique.
Then the Build Quality. First of all the Premium Box, the card is made out of good-feeling plastic.
It also has the same thickness like an orginal game. The DSTWO is thicker and often gets stucked in the Game-Slot. It behaves 100% like an orginal game.
And the unique DSi-Mode. The will was there at least, but the support was dropped, which brings us to the negative side
The Team disappeared, leaving the card blocked on newer systems with bugs.
You have to use tricks to make the card working on newer systems.
Also, the price of 60€ combined with the bad Availability of the card are bad.
So would I recommend the card?
Well, the card itself is very good and doesn't have to hide behind the DSTWO.
But because of the missing support, the card isn't higher recommendable than a DSTWO.
That's why I would only recommend this card to Collectors, people who already have DSTWO that want to try something different...
... or People who really want to play Games natively in DSi-Mode and don't want to use an emulator
Thank you very much for watching, if you have further questions, feel free to ask them in the comments and I hope to see you in a next video!
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