Ninjapass Evolution X9 Official Review

Features 

The box advertised good points and I couldn’t wait to get started when I saw the details on the box 

• Directly drag 'N drop all files into the memory by: 
  Wireless WiFi burning (Revolutionary design) 
  High Speed USB 2.0 data transfer (Fully speed) 
• Compatibility with Homebrew, Clean rom and Moonshell. 
• Also compatible with all the ds gamesaves type 
• Multi language Ds loader 
• Supports the ultra large capacity memory 
  X9TF : up to 4 gb MicroSD/Transflash 
  X9 : up to 2gb internal flash memory 
• 100% same size as original ds cartridge 
• Never stick out of any DS & DS Lite 
• Direct play without any passcard,FlashMe or WifiMe and supports all version of Ds and Ds lite. 
• Supports all version of DS & DS Lite

Packaging and Contents

• Ninjapass X9

• USB 2.0 Secure Digital Reader

• Replacement Casing with decals

Packaging has a reflective background surrounding the product logo. Inside, you'll find the flash card itself in transparent black, a replacement casing in clear transparent along with two decals. You will need the decals, if you intend on swapping casings. Read on why that might not be such a good idea. A nice bonus in the included USB reader, embroidered with the Ninjapass logo. It's helpful for those who may not yet own a card reader for their PCs or Macs.

Hardware 

 All the components looked fine as far as I could see. I struggled slightly with the tiny, tiny screws when I removed the cover. May I suggest maybe including a spare pair of screws just in case one has an accident and loses them! 

I was not overly impressed by the menu it was a bit basic, but liked the icon on the loading page made me git a bit more excited about playing the games! 

Setting Up & Using

Setting up your Micro-SD memory to use with the Ninjapass X9 is an easy task. First, you must format your memory as FAT16 first. Next, copy the XS loader.nds and tfsystem folder to your memory. Then, you drag and drop your uncompressed ROMs onto the memory's root. Finally, you plug the X9 into your DS and play. It is a bit easier than it once was and on par with ease of use with its competitors in terms of setting up.

GUI (OS)

Far removed of the GUI's former status, the present one isn't too shabby. On the top screen, you'll see the X9 logo along with a box on the lower end giving the ROM's number (a first), brief name (not always accurate) and the save file type. On the lower screen, you'll see the .nds files in their native form. Continuing on the lower screen, there are 3 buttons below. The GUI is cut and dry. It lets you play games and homebrew apps and nothing more. No extras about, like skin apps, like DS-Xtreme, PDA like G6/M3, nada. The X9's primary focus is to play. For basic players, this is all they will need.

Card Speed:

Depending on which brand of memory you possess, here is where you instruct the X9 how to relate performance towards. This is basically trial and error. You'll need to first identify how well your memory's read and write speed relate. If you own a top tier brand, such as Toshiba or Kingston (Japan), then you'll know that Turbo is a safe bet. Otherwise, you'll find yourself testing and testing to get the right speed depending on which games and apps you are running. There is no written guide available to tell owners which speed is for which brand minus what's at Scorpei's X9 Wiki (which doesn't even list my memory brand accurately), so in this regard, it is a bit on the side of neglect. Hopefully, a future OS update can clear this up. Mind you, it's not a major issue, but it does lie on a scale of annoyance.

Manual & Auto:

The other two buttons involved are save functions. Auto creates and saves to an identical file of your .nds game or app. Manual allows you to choose which save file to use. With Manual, you can indeed support multiple saves upon one X9 unit. It's a nice feature for fiscally-restricted households along with cheap bastards.

NoPass:

While it only states it can do so in the product's features, X9 does indeed work as a nopass, but there was nowhere on the site's manual or stated upon the GUI that tells you how. I had to dig into their forums and search for it. At the main screen of the GUI, press the L Button to boot to your favorite slot-2 card. Long ago, it could only boot EWin2 and EZ-Flash IV. Now, it will boot a wider range of flash cards, such as M3 Perfect and Supercard.

 Performance

At one time, this was an area that I could find few words of praise to comment upon.

ROM Compatibility:

While I did go through and test a lot of games once again, and much more functional this time around, I'm not going to make a long, drawn-out list. The reason being is because people really want to know the answer to the following questions:

Q: Is there any game that won't work?

A: Cars (any region) and the usual suspect, Super Mario 64 DS (USA) (older dump), will freeze. All other games seem to run as intended. Slow write/speed memory cards may notice some slowdown. Be sure to experiment with the Card Speed option to find the optimum performance.

Q: Will Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin play properly without freezing?

A: If you own a top-speed Micro-SD, such as Toshiba or Kingston (Japan), then yes. If not, as I myself don't own either brand, then you'll have to play the real game card solely.

Q: Will it work with the Nintendo DS Browser?

A: If you have the patched ROM and cooresponding slot-2 flash card (G6, M3, Supercard), then yes. Otherwise, you'll need the official memory expansion.

Download Play / Single-cart Multiplayer / Wi-Fi Connection:

Once again, due to not having two DS units available to me, I am unable to personally test Download Play. There has been some dicussions that have caught my eye concerning some games having protections (usually Nintendo-published titles), while others need to be redumped. I don't know if these statements are exact or not, nor do I care. No slot-1 flash card had superiority on download play over any others as far as I know. If everyone you are playing against has a flash card, then this isn't an issue. Fortunately, all Wi-Fi Connection titles will play online.

Battery Life Results:

There has never been any notice during either testing processes of mine to spot any battery life that could be deemed less than average. Though the days of worrying about this attribute isn't that far in the past, this area of review has relatively become moot these days. Let's hope we continue to see an utter extinction of battery-guzzling flash cards.

Game Compatibility

Well on to the games. As I said this is my first review and could hardly wait to try a whole range of games and old classics that I haven’t played in a while. After realising that there is an option for changing the speed of my microSD card (thanks to a few of you  ), I found that all of the games worked and worked really well.  

My first attempt at doing this I was disappointed to say the least but now after I have spent a few more nights on testing more games there were no faults or glitches. Everything worked very well and I was so pleased. There are a few games that suffer from slow loading times but that did get too annoying and I think this could be worked on to be faster. 

DID NOT WORK 

Star Fox 
Tony Hawk's Downhill Jam 

Unfortunately I could not get these working on any speed but they were the only two games I had any trouble with. 


BUGGY OR PROBLEMS 


WORKED

42 All time classics 
Alex Rider Stormbreaker 
Animal Crossing 
Anno 1701 
Bomberland Touch 
Castlevania Dawn of Sorrow 
Castlevania Portrait of Ruin 
Custom Robo Arena 
Dark Labyrinth 
Diddy Kong Racing 
Diner Dash 
Dragon Quest Slime 
Harvest Moon 
Hiite Vtaerups DS Guitar 
Hotel Dusk 
Kaitou Wario the Seven 
Kirby Squeak Squad 
Lego Star Wars 
Lode Runner 
Lost Magic 
Magical Starsign 
Magnetica 
Mario and Luigi Partners in Time 
Mario Basket 3 on 3 
Mario Kart 
Micro Machines 
Nintendo DS Browser (SC Patched) 
Phoenix Wright - Ace Attorney 
Picross DS 
Rafa Nadal Tennis 
Secret of the Divine Jewel 
Star Trek Tactical Assault 

Super Monkey Ball 

Super Princess Peach 

Texris 
Touch Detective 
Ulitmate Spiderman 
Yoshi Island DS 

After spending more time on the testing of all these games I was pleased to find that all my saves worked fine and there were no glitches or problems in loading any of these games. It is a shame that there are still popular games that do not run but overall it is quite impressive. 

You can check out Scorpeis Ninjnapass X9 compatibility list here although I could not get Star Fox to work even though the list sais it works. 

Homebrew Compatibility 

I was more than surprised with the outcome of this one. The only two games that didn’t work for me here were AmplituDs and Deal or No Deal. I suspect this had something to do with the fact I needed to patch them and it just doesn’t like it. 

Everything else worked really well and I had good fun trying the different games. 

Ds Bowling 
DS Organise 
Games Collection 
Heaven and Hell 
Mah-jong 
Puzzle 
Sonic DS 
Spider Solitaire 
Stoneage 

All work really well with no sound issues or glitches experienced in normal games. 

Conclusion 
I have taken everyone’s comments on board and that’s why i have re-reviewed the Ninjapass X9. I was disappointed first of all when hardly any of the games were working. I am too used to my SuperCard and DS-X so I overlooked options concerning speed. After I had realised this I set to work on this again and since I posted this last week I have been hard at work on it very night since I came in from work ensuring that all the games worked and that the Ninjapass was as good as people kept telling me. 

I have to say yes it is. I feel that I made an easy mistake and because it doesn’t explain that you may have to change your speed settings for certain games to work but it seems it was a costly mistake to make. 

I have enjoyed re-testing all the games and ensuring that the review is up to scratch for you all. I have been I a little longer than I wished but I can now safely say that the Ninjapass Evolution X9 is a great flashcard. 

You can buy the Ninjapass X9TF for around $25 from any of the Ninjapass resellers. 

PROS 

+ Time ,Tempreture and date on main menu 
+ Replacement shells in various colours 
+ Easy to use 
+ Good homebrew compatibility 
+ DLDI compatible 
+ 92% rom compatibility 

- No cheat system 
- Card itself was flimsy. 
- Card "sticks" in DS and DS lite, not as much in DS Lite 
- Compatibility with microSD cards varies, can cause problems for some people. 
- Clear Instructions not clearly available online. 
- Having to test the different speeds on alot of the games to find the best setting 

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