mGBA cheat code compatibility

Libretro Cores
#1

GBA cheat codes are a complete pain because there’s so many formats. After some painstaking testing I have established that generally, the following 3 formats will work in the mGBA core:

  • encrypted GameShark Advance codes
  • decrypted Codebreaker codes
  • decrypted Action Replay MAX codes

You can click ‘info’ on any code on gamehacking.org and it will show you the code in all formats, if at all possible. Choose one of the supported formats above and it should work - so long as the original code is correct and listed in the correct original format (there are a lot of broken codes out there).

Lastly, you sometimes encounter RAW codes - I’ve not found any way to convert these so they are usable in Retroarch. However, you can use a program called GBACCC to patch RAW codes directly into the ROM, so that’s one solution.

Oh, and there is occasional additional weirdness - for example I was trying to apply a bunch of codes to Aria of Sorrow, and was finding that only one of them worked. The solution, very strangely, was to apply them one at a time (as in apply one, go back to the game, apply the next, back to the game, etc…) Very odd.

1 Like
#2

Posting this here since I’m not able to make topics yet. :sweat_smile: Your post has been pretty enlightening, and I’m wondering if I’ve run into one of these “RAW” codes you speak of.

I’m trying to find a way to apply this cheatcode for Castlevania: Circle of the Moon. You can see the cheat being applied in this old video from 2008 for the VisualBoy Advance emulator: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IITFs_j5XA

I don’t use VBA and prefer using mGBA via Retroarch. I’d really like to apply this cheat, but after a whole day of researching of how to convert it to mGBA and apply it in Retroarch, I’m still clueless. It looks like it’s a memory address overwrite. As mentioned in the video description, the author wrote: " If you are using another emulator all you need to know is that you need to set 0200009c to always be 00." But I have not found a way to apply it when running mGBA on Retroarch.

I know this is a very specific ask, but hoping someone else has maybe run into something like this. Thanks.

1 Like
#3

In case anyone sees this in the future, I figured out how to apply that cheat to Castlevania: Circle of the Moon!

I used the always run cheat from here: https://archive.ph/3RZHp Under cheats, just enter a cheat with the value to literally be: 3200009C 0000 with the Handler Emulator