RetroZone SNES PowerPak

[Minox]

RetroZone SNES PowerPak
Official GBAtemp Review

GBAtemp member amptor has just finished his review of RetroZone's SNES PowerPak flashcart. Unlike some older flashcarts/copiers for the SNES the SNES PowerPak utilizes a somewhat more recent storage method for games/homebrew. No Secure Digital cards I'm afraid, but the slightly older Compact Flash standard which still should be more than enough to satisfy your possible SNES gaming needs. Enough of this now, you should go read the review in the link below to find out whether this is something that might interest you.

 SNES PowerPak review

 

[shaunj66]

Fantastic review as always, amptor.

 

[RupeeClock]

OH GOD, THUMBNAILS EVERYWHERE.
This thing seems to boast near-perfect compatibility huh? That's pretty cool.
Just simple drag and drop roms onto a Compact Flash? That's even cooler.
What I wanna know is, how does Earthbound run on it? That's one of the most infamous anti-piracy cases on the SNES.

Too bad it costs $140 though, a GP2X Caanoo costs $149, is a handheld, and can emulate much more than just a SNES.

 

[Another World]

Too bad it costs $140 though, a GP2X Caanoo costs $149, is a handheld, and can emulate much more than just a SNES.

i enjoy playing other systems on my various chinese handhelds, but playing on the actual hardware hooked up to an old 4:3 TV can't be beat. i would take my atari 2600 over an emulator any day.

i can't wait to find a free moment to read this review! =) i've been interested in the retrozone carts for a minute.

-another world

 

[RupeeClock]

Too bad it costs $140 though, a GP2X Caanoo costs $149, is a handheld, and can emulate much more than just a SNES.

i enjoy playing other systems on my various chinese handhelds, but playing on the actual hardware hooked up to an old 4:3 TV can't be beat. i would take my atari 2600 over an emulator any day.

i can't wait to find a free moment to read this review! =) i've been interested in the retrozone carts for a minute.

-another world

Oh absolutely, you can't beat playing a good game of Kirby's Fun Pak on an actual SNES, it's just awesome, a real hit of nostalgia.
It's just a shame the cartridge isn't more affordable, but then I think we've been spoilt by an advent of ridiculously cheap NDS flashcarts.
I remember paying £80 for my R4DS in 2007, now they're £4.

GP2X and Caanoo are Korean by the way.

 

[GreatCrippler]

This is cool as can be. Sad that it won't play special chip games though.

As for the GP2X, and Canoo. They don't play chip game either, do they?

 

[Costello]

awesome review as always, buddy!
the incompatiblity list link is broken for me, btw.

 

[amptor]

Fantastic review as always, amptor.

thanx shaunj is always a good friend

OH GOD, THUMBNAILS EVERYWHERE.
This thing seems to boast near-perfect compatibility huh? That's pretty cool.
Just simple drag and drop roms onto a Compact Flash? That's even cooler.
What I wanna know is, how does Earthbound run on it? That's one of the most infamous anti-piracy cases on the SNES.

Too bad it costs $140 though, a GP2X Caanoo costs $149, is a handheld, and can emulate much more than just a SNES.

Earthbound works. If it didn't it would be listed in the incompatibility list. You can buy a full SNES handheld to play these flash carts on too and it also can plug into a TV and has 2 wireless controllers.

Too bad it costs $140 though, a GP2X Caanoo costs $149, is a handheld, and can emulate much more than just a SNES.

i enjoy playing other systems on my various chinese handhelds, but playing on the actual hardware hooked up to an old 4:3 TV can't be beat. i would take my atari 2600 over an emulator any day.

i can't wait to find a free moment to read this review! =) i've been interested in the retrozone carts for a minute.

-another world

I do prefer the 4:3 CRT for the SNES, however I like Genesis on big screen for some reason. Though I can't recall ever plugging this snes into a big screen tv. I really like it on a wega tho.

QUOTE(Costello @ Aug 16 2010, 12:55 AM)

awesome review as always, buddy!
the incompatiblity list link is broken for me, btw.

omg the incompatibility list link is broken, hmm I can't remember testing that one link in particular. I'll have to look into it but a mod would have to reapply the HTML to the post so I'd be finding a mod before I edit the post.

 

[amptor]

Also guys the manufacturer told me that there is a custom firmware for this device you copy into the POWERPAK directory that alleviates the 2mbit issues that I had. It took me a lot of time to put this review together, so I didn't include any 3rd party firmwares (like on the previous reviews) but I may go back in and find it and then add a little snippet later how that works and where to find it. I would want to also make sure that it hopefully fixes the "no internal header" issue with excite bike, as that has kinda forced me to use the neoflash product to play that game for the time being.

I see the price issue comes up a lot on these devices but you guys have to understand at least a couple of things. shorter product run (nintendo ds is immensely more popular due to it still being sold in stores and it is more modern, so hence cheap flash cart solutions available for that one and not for the slower selling snes solutions) and also that there's more parts inside a snes flash cart than inside a typical R4 which consequentially makes it cost more money in that, let alone the cost to manufacture a short run of printed circuit boards (PCBs).

 

[RETRO_GAMER]

this cartrige needs a topic in the forum, aaaaahh i want one but $140,
i want a n64 version

 

[Jockel]

I bought one when they were originally released and i haven't looked back ever since.
It's awesome.

 

[WiiUBricker]

Too bad that we cant dump original games with that device

 

[GGC]

When I was reading the review, I was like "whooooaaaa! that thing is the s***!" but then, I saw its price!
$140 is way too much for this type of accessory. If it was half price, I would definitely buy it though.
Too bad.

 

[stormwolf18]

Too bad that we cant dump original games with that device

Why would you want to do that ?

working link for incompatibility list

 

[Bilbotorm]

One question I have for this one

when i looked at it ; 6 months ago; there was a trick : the sram was not written in the files if you do not prepare empty srm file on the CF card.

+

the sram was not save if you were not pressing reset for 5 secs and then you can shut down the SNES... pretty annoying.

Was it fixed ? maybe a new version ?

 

[ReyVGM]

Amps is alive

 

[smellyunicorn]

Well atleast somewhere out there; someone needs this!

 

[KillerMiller]

Sorry for bumping such an old thread, but its better than to open a new one I guess.
Anyway.

I have problems to run many japanese games like Bonk 2, Super Tetris 3.... that have region lock in it, many games don't work and only show some messages like " THIS GAME PAK IS NOT DESIGNED FOR YOUR SUPER NINTENDO"
I am using the PowerPak on my PAL SNES and every EURO or USA game works except those japanese ones.
There are some very old DOS tools where you can change the region of any SNES ROM but those tools don't work on my Windows 7.

My question is, are there any modern tools to handle this issue and could someone name a few?
Or is there any other workaround?

Thx.