Mr. Driller Drill Land (GC). Boots but no saves work.

[sean.aaron]

Set Lang to Japanese, but I still get rubbish ASCII characters at the initial boot, which is no doubt telling me I'm trying to run the game on a non-Japanese system.  The game will then start normally, however, no saves work -- doesn't even register that they're there to load.  This is one of the famously difficult games to run on any kind of region-free rig because Namco put code into the game to check the system area before creating or reading a save file.  You can get it to "format" a blank card, but it really doesn't format it properly and refuses to read it.  I have an existing save file, but it won't read the card at all.  Use of a XenoGC-modded Gamecube had the same results as did Freeloader.

I'm hoping there can be a solution with GeckoOS via the ability to do more than simply run region-free, but I don't know how possible that is.

The only way I've gotten this to run is via AnyRegionChanger:  changing Game Area to Japan worked a treat, but that actually edits the system.txt file and no longer works with the latest firmware update (which I have installed).  I don't know if there's a software-only way to change the Game Area setting to fool the game into thinking it's running on a Japanese machine, so right now I'm contemplating buying a Japanese Wii for the sole purpose of playing this game, which might be a bit excessive.  If I knew Namco was planning a Wii port with global release I wouldn't do it, but I figure access to the Japanese Wii Shop will also make this worth doing, plus the ability to run my Japanese Wii games without GeckoOS. 

If there's any way to get GeckoOS to run it properly that would be sweet and save me the duplicate hardware.

Note that I have a PAL Wii with the latest 3.3 firmware installed.

[Badaro]

This is quite interesting. I have several NTSC/J GC games that had issues with Freeloader, which forced me to region-mod my Cube.

If Mr.Driller works properly with AnyRegionChanger, there's a good chance most "problematic" games will also work with this method. I don't feel like testing it since the "This May Brick Your Wii" warnings on AnyRegion Changer scares me, but maybe someone will find a "safer" way to do apply this patch.

[sean.aaron]

The main problem with AnyRegionChanger outside of the scary bricking potential is that the latest firmware update broke it, so it's just not a solution any more.

Apparently there's firmware for a more common mod for the Gamecube that does allow Mr. Driller to run correctly, but I no longer own a Gamecube and a Japanese Wii is something I can hopefully get reasonably (I'll find out this week; there's a few up on eBay), so I'm not too fussed.

[Badaro]

Works perfectly with a region-switch modded Gamecube. I know because I own one. :)

http://www.oratan.com/projects/gcn_mod.html

Though I'd love to get it working perfectly in my US Wii, since that would allow me to "retire" the Gamecube, freeing me some much-needed shelf space.

[sean.aaron]

Japanese Wii will be arriving in the post any day now, so problem solved!

[Knocks]

This game is the reason I region-modded my GameCube (ruined one motherboard while soldering, got another one :)).  Didn't know it worked with AnyRegionChanger.  Do I still need a separate JP-formatted memory card or will it save to a U.S.-formatted card (like Naruto and other Japanese games)?

[sean.aaron]

It will work with Any Region Changer, but mind the inherent risks.  It will trash your USA-format memory card, so be sure to use a spare one.