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Thanks so much for this amazing game! :) Can't stop playing the Battle Frontier Demo, which is an amazing battle-focused game and definitely the best battle engine vs. AI to date :)
Mainly I'm playing on my PC, but I decided to test Unbound BFD on my New 2DS with custom firmware, and I'd like to post the results here if anyone is interested :) I tried three different approaches to running the game:
1) mGBA - works perfectly fine with no glitches, the game takes a while to load (close to a minute I think), but there is no noticeable slowdown in the game itself (overworld, battles) when using mGBA 0.8.4; there is a minor slowdown and sound distortion while saving the game. Frameskip was set to 1. Note that if you're on an Old 2DS/3DS, this is likely going to be less playable, but I don't have a device like that to test how slow the game will go on it (but I'm assuming considerably slower, you might need to ramp up frameskip to get to acceptable FPS values). Note, by the way, that on mGBA 0.8.3, I couldn't get above 52-53 FPS in the overworld and there was some sound distortion because of that, but after upgrading to v0.8.4, I pretty much always get 59-60 FPS in the overworld under Frameskip 1 and there is no sound distortion. Tried all the features including saving/loading, RTC compatibility, and using all the PC boxes including the battle box, and everything worked out of the box as advertised.
2) Virtual console injection - works almost perfectly provided that care is taken to inject with a 1Mbit Flash save (=128k) and RTC enabled, there is no slowdown at all, loads the game quickly, no slowdown when saving the game. There is, however, an issue with this approach that may be a deal breaker for you depending on how you look at it: it's impossible to use the last two PC boxes, including, sadly, the "battle box" (all the mon disappear from the last box and about half the mon disappear from the second to the last box when the game is reloaded). Most likely has to do with how the 128k Flash save is implemented in virtual console injects, I guess it doesn't save everything. Outside of this issue though, the game works absolutely flawlessly at native speed.
3) TwilightMenu GBARunner2, latest version as of this writing - hangs when starting the game with the default settings, loads if "skip BIOS logo" option is turned on in the settings, but the video is slightly distorted in the bottom of the screen, and there is no provision for RTC, which breaks the day/night functionality which is critical for Unbound BFD. Didn't test saving/reloading as the game is quite broken already when running via TwilightMenu, but at least the game didn't complain about the flash save type, so I'm assuming 128k is supported.
Overall, I'd say mGBA is the definitive way to play on a N2DS/N3DS without glitches if longer load time and minor sound distortion during the save are not a problem. The game works perfectly well and all the features work correctly and as desired, the RTC clock works as advertised and there is no problem with the save type. On the other side, a virtual console inject is a decent way to play without any slowdowns whatsoever, but one has to agree not to use the amazing battle box feature to store 6 additional teams and also one has to be careful using the two last boxes in general since most pokemon in them will disappear without a trace (and I don't think this can be tweaked in any way unless they update the virtual console inject system itself somehow, if that's even possible - I tried all the variants of save types supported by the injector, there are two different 1 MBit ones, in particular, but there was no difference and the issue was exactly the same). Virtual console injects, however, may be the only acceptable solution on Old 2DS/3DS if mGBA is too slow on them (haven't tested due to the absence of the device). TwilightMenu did not offer a playable solution for Unbound BFD, unfortunately, and the game was pretty much unplayable (no RTC, visual distortion, the game hangs if the BIOS boot logo is not skipped).
Hope this helps someone who is aiming to play on a CFW'ed 2DS/3DS :)
Mainly I'm playing on my PC, but I decided to test Unbound BFD on my New 2DS with custom firmware, and I'd like to post the results here if anyone is interested :) I tried three different approaches to running the game:
1) mGBA - works perfectly fine with no glitches, the game takes a while to load (close to a minute I think), but there is no noticeable slowdown in the game itself (overworld, battles) when using mGBA 0.8.4; there is a minor slowdown and sound distortion while saving the game. Frameskip was set to 1. Note that if you're on an Old 2DS/3DS, this is likely going to be less playable, but I don't have a device like that to test how slow the game will go on it (but I'm assuming considerably slower, you might need to ramp up frameskip to get to acceptable FPS values). Note, by the way, that on mGBA 0.8.3, I couldn't get above 52-53 FPS in the overworld and there was some sound distortion because of that, but after upgrading to v0.8.4, I pretty much always get 59-60 FPS in the overworld under Frameskip 1 and there is no sound distortion. Tried all the features including saving/loading, RTC compatibility, and using all the PC boxes including the battle box, and everything worked out of the box as advertised.
2) Virtual console injection - works almost perfectly provided that care is taken to inject with a 1Mbit Flash save (=128k) and RTC enabled, there is no slowdown at all, loads the game quickly, no slowdown when saving the game. There is, however, an issue with this approach that may be a deal breaker for you depending on how you look at it: it's impossible to use the last two PC boxes, including, sadly, the "battle box" (all the mon disappear from the last box and about half the mon disappear from the second to the last box when the game is reloaded). Most likely has to do with how the 128k Flash save is implemented in virtual console injects, I guess it doesn't save everything. Outside of this issue though, the game works absolutely flawlessly at native speed.
3) TwilightMenu GBARunner2, latest version as of this writing - hangs when starting the game with the default settings, loads if "skip BIOS logo" option is turned on in the settings, but the video is slightly distorted in the bottom of the screen, and there is no provision for RTC, which breaks the day/night functionality which is critical for Unbound BFD. Didn't test saving/reloading as the game is quite broken already when running via TwilightMenu, but at least the game didn't complain about the flash save type, so I'm assuming 128k is supported.
Overall, I'd say mGBA is the definitive way to play on a N2DS/N3DS without glitches if longer load time and minor sound distortion during the save are not a problem. The game works perfectly well and all the features work correctly and as desired, the RTC clock works as advertised and there is no problem with the save type. On the other side, a virtual console inject is a decent way to play without any slowdowns whatsoever, but one has to agree not to use the amazing battle box feature to store 6 additional teams and also one has to be careful using the two last boxes in general since most pokemon in them will disappear without a trace (and I don't think this can be tweaked in any way unless they update the virtual console inject system itself somehow, if that's even possible - I tried all the variants of save types supported by the injector, there are two different 1 MBit ones, in particular, but there was no difference and the issue was exactly the same). Virtual console injects, however, may be the only acceptable solution on Old 2DS/3DS if mGBA is too slow on them (haven't tested due to the absence of the device). TwilightMenu did not offer a playable solution for Unbound BFD, unfortunately, and the game was pretty much unplayable (no RTC, visual distortion, the game hangs if the BIOS boot logo is not skipped).
Hope this helps someone who is aiming to play on a CFW'ed 2DS/3DS :)
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