Chrono Trigger piracy checks already beaten

by Chris Greenhough { Nov 19th 2008 at 1:00PM }

After its novel attempts to prevent illegal distribution of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates, Square Enix has packed numerous piracy checks into Chrono Trigger DS. Sadly (and predictably), hackers have already found a fix to the problem, if this huge thread on the GBAtemp forums is to be believed.

When the ROM of Chrono Trigger was first dumped online earlier this week, naughty flashcart users discovered that it was impossible to progress past certain points in the title. Never-ending time travel (near the start of the game) and the inability to open the Cathedral doors after recruiting Frog were just two of the problems encountered by pirates.

Typically, however, it has taken hackers mere hours to find a workaround for the copyright protection -- further evidence that developers and publishers, regardless of size, face an uphill battle against those who yarr.

Gallery: Chrono Trigger

[Thanks, RupeeClock!]

Tags: chrono-trigger, flashcart, piracy, rpg, square-enix, yarr

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

chispito @ Nov 19th 2008 1:07PM

Some of us really do play games we own off of our flashcarts.

aj @ Nov 19th 2008 1:14PM

I don't own a flash cart, but I do have CFW on my PSP, and I second your emotion. I use my pirated PSP to play NetHack and Cave Story and Mahjong solitaire. All of which are freeware games that Sony doesn't want me to play on the device I own.

The customer is not the enemy!

RupeeClock @ Nov 19th 2008 6:06PM

As do I, I buy my games and dump the rom myself.

I like the freedom of multiple games of choice on one cart, and homebrew, and music, and video, and file management!

But yeah, great to see a fix out already, but even if people DO fix piracy protection, there will always be the casual pirate who doesn't know about such fixes. So naturally they'll buy the game or not at all.

aj @ Nov 19th 2008 1:12PM

Anything that can be built can be taken apart. There is absolutely no way to change that. It is impossible to prevent software piracy in the same way that it is impossible to prevent people from creating games in the first place.

You'd have to outlaw computer science lessons and books.....and to be honest, I'd honestly expect someone with a lot of money to try to get a law passed to restrict the sales of computer science texts. What a sad world we live in all around.

Mert @ Nov 19th 2008 2:01PM

aj, somebody who uses pirated PSP to play freeware games is not a "customer".

Kogita @ Nov 19th 2008 2:07PM

Somebody who buys a PSP is a customer. I'm assuming by a pirated PSP he means custom firmware. If he actually pirated even the PSP, yeah, then he isn't. :P

E @ Nov 19th 2008 2:48PM

Why not??

Danny F. @ Nov 19th 2008 2:14PM

UGGGGHHH Amazon why do you taunt me so!! Expected Delivery of December 1st ?!?! >_

Edge @ Nov 19th 2008 2:18PM

Come on, that was enough for a "demo" of the game. Just go buy the damn game. Chrono Trigger is an all time classic and not supporting it's development is downright wrong.

Sam @ Nov 19th 2008 2:26PM

some of us buy the game and use the ROM to play, so we don't have to carry around a billion flashcarts of every game we want to play :(

I want to move to an alternate universe where DRM doesn't exist, but everything else is the same, kinda like that futurama episode where only coinflips were different.

Edge @ Nov 19th 2008 2:35PM

Excuse me if I'm less than receptive to that excuse. That's the same as console users complaining they have to get off the couch to change game disks.

Ghaleon @ Nov 19th 2008 2:50PM

It's a decade old 16-bit RPG re-released at full price, and people are whining about "not supporting its development".

lasersanchez @ Nov 19th 2008 2:52PM

Already paid $75 for it when it came out for the SNES. Pretty sure I already supported its development.

Nadril @ Nov 19th 2008 4:48PM

Because we all enjoy carrying around a ton of flash carts with us "on the go".

Doesn't matter anyways, DRM is useless and only thwarts the customer.

Ricky @ Nov 19th 2008 10:17PM

Not even close. You don't carry a PlayStation around with you when playing Final Fantasy VIII. I do, however, carry my DS with me and carrying around lots of tiny cartridges that can _easily get lost_ is not such a nice thing.

There are also lots of neat things you can do with flash carts that you can't do with legitimate carts. Examples include homebrew (of touted) and, oh yeah, the ability to back up save files to your PC!

aj @ Nov 20th 2008 12:48AM

Ghaleon wins.

Danny F. @ Nov 20th 2008 8:36AM

@ghaleon & lasersanchez

Buying the snes version is not the same thing. Same game yes. But two completely different platform. We are talking about a whole different team porting the game over to a portable size with new features and addons. These people don't work for free, and they have families to feed as well. Its piraters like you guys (or I assume you are based on your arguments) that affect gaming as a whole and punish more then just the developers themselves, but their families aswell.

lasersanchez @ Nov 20th 2008 6:18PM

Hey, if the game came out at the price it was worth ($20), I'd be buying it. If Chrono Trigger 2 came out at $40, you'd be hearing no complaints from me. I'm a little concerned that everyone's all jumping to defend a title ported by a small team working for a big company that was already profitable, that was already released alongside another full sized game for $40 7-8 years ago (PSOne). This instead of arguing against pirates that are getting Lock's Quest or whatever other critical darling that has come out recently.

Kai Wong @ Nov 19th 2008 2:21PM

Sigh, the only reason this is even an issue is because people who saw the rom were like "OMG THE JAPANESE VERSION HAS ENGLISH DIALOGUE" -_-. Although Square may have tried admirably to prevent pirates from winning, if the Japanese version was in Japanese I bet there would be significantly fewer people going gaga over this.

And honestly, I don't see this as finalized. There are reports of people losing everything on their microSD card after using some of these patches, and others are reporting that the patches still don't let them get past certain points of the game. I would say it'll take a few more days before it's actually finalized.

gammysupset @ Nov 19th 2008 3:32PM

I was a kid and never had an SNES, so yeah, in the late 90s I played the crap out of CT on an emulator. I enjoyed it so much that I am making a point to buy it for real this time around.

Games like this don't deserve to be pirated.

aj @ Nov 20th 2008 12:50AM

I know, I was a Sega kid and was first introduced to CT through an emulator. But I just can't play games on my PC. It's not the same. So I've been waiting and waiting and waiting for a portable version of this game. I was kind of hoping it would hit the GBA, since the GBA was all about SNES ports.....but it's better late than never, eh?

Josh @ Nov 19th 2008 3:34PM

I'd like to know how the game actually detects its being pirated.

Kogita @ Nov 20th 2008 4:48AM

It's actually pretty basic. There's a special subroutine that manually makes a hash of the code in the DS RAM at the time, and compares it to what it should be. Every flash cart alters the code slightly, causing a hash mismatch.

EATxCHOUI @ Nov 19th 2008 4:03PM

I just want to give a shout out to the pirate chihuahua. You are so cute!

There is an undeniable joy in hacking something deemed "unhackable" and sharing it with everyone. If you don't like it, don't take part in it and buy the real thing.

And while I think $40 is steep for any DS game, I would buy the real copy after reading the reviews first.

Sora @ Nov 19th 2008 4:49PM

Those people are money hungry freaks come on they just took the old version of the game and put on the ds for a price tag of 40 dollars are you really kidding me , I'm glad we have good hearted hacking to show them what's up, the economy is the toilet and they expect people to pay 40 bucks for a piece of crap, basically were paying a bunch of money for a super nintendo game, TWO THUMBS UP TO ALL HACKERS

CnEY?! @ Nov 19th 2008 7:33PM

Wow, dude. Way to be hypocritically obnoxious. If the game were a piece of crap, why on earth would you even bother pirating it?

I am indeed in agreement with the people of the opinion that $40 for a straight port of a SNES game with one new dungeon and ending is ridiculous, and I am sick to death of Squeenix getting rich off of renewing 10 year old hype. However, Chrono Trigger in itself is NOT crap. Unless, of course, they completely butchered the port, which I doubt.

Sora @ Nov 19th 2008 8:09PM

dude you know exactly what I meant, it has an interesting story, the graphic is crap is what I meant to say, compare to games nowadays, but still not worth 40 bucks to play the same game from super nintendo, except for somewhat different ending, which back then I was like 9.

Monodi @ Nov 20th 2008 1:11AM

I see your point, but remember that if the game has much less sales than expected it means that they will think the game is a failure and Chrono fans might never have another chance to have a version of it again. Or even worse, what if they realize "new marketing" making something totally different from the great 2D RPG context to do more FFVII bullshit?

Mert @ Nov 20th 2008 4:18AM

You don't need this game to live. Don't want to buy it - do something else (play football?) that doesn't require you being a thief.

Mike @ Nov 19th 2008 6:06PM

I love the r4ds -just bought a second one yesterday. Watching movies,etc on the ds is a blast-now I have no desire for a psp. Not having a lid over the psp screen is ridiculous. Do ds flashcarts!

Matt @ Nov 19th 2008 7:35PM

My cycloDS is amazing :)

mike @ Nov 19th 2008 7:46PM

games been floating around the net for about 10 years.. piracy checks? pfft. amazing.

(no, the game is exactly the same.)

Soatari @ Nov 19th 2008 9:24PM

I've bought this game for both the SNES and the PS1 (special edition with animated cutscenes). I think I've given my fair share to Square for development costs. Luckily, I've played this game enough times that I don't really feel I need to play it again any time soon.

gukid @ Nov 19th 2008 10:57PM

I appreciate how this game has an English option on the Japanese cart. I suppose I'll have to import it, and then have a version with a superior boxart (no ugly bevelling or drop shadow) and also no "licensed by nintendo" or "online features not rated by the esrb" intro screens. With more japanese releases would have english as an option so I could stop buying cruddy US published games altogether.

milan @ Nov 20th 2008 12:36AM

considering how most of the money a person pays for a game goes to the retailer and not the developer, i'm not too broken up about hugely profitable video game corporations having some people pirate games, many of whom would probably not buy the game anyways.

aj @ Nov 20th 2008 12:55AM

The retailer is how you buy the game.

If you don't support the retailer, you can't buy games anymore.

There are better ways of voting with your wallet, though. You could just not buy overpriced games. You could only buy used. You could even talk to the manager or owner of the store and explain why you won't buy new games and get your gamer friends to do the same. You could even go on the internet and get people to start a boycott over high prices.

The only reason why Square charges so much is because people just HAVE to buy a game they've already bought before. Self control on the part of the community, not buying the hype, would probably eliminate the Square tax in a year's time.

milan @ Nov 20th 2008 1:26AM

I totally agree with your points, especially the "Square tax". Ha. What an apt way of describing their pricing policy. I love Square and many of their games, but I hate that they seem to take advantage of their fans' loyalty.

Mind you, if you buy direct from the publisher or developer through the internet, which is often possible, MUCH much more of the money goes directly to the creators of your entertainment, rather than the distributor. If people cared so much about game developers, they would do this more often.

Also, the companies are already profiting, and many of the 'pirates' are people who wouldn't spend the money on the software in the first place... therefore, those people are not really costing any sales, they are just getting free entertainment. I know that piracy accounts for some loss of sales, but there is a huge base of pirates who wouldn't waste a dime otherwise.

(Thanks for replying aj!)

chibi_wings @ Nov 20th 2008 7:12PM

"I know that piracy accounts for some loss of sales, but there is a huge base of pirates who wouldn't waste a dime otherwise."

and if they don't want to pay, then they shouldn't get the game. Piracy in itself is harmful. If you buy a flashcart for 60 and then you can get whatever games you want for free rather then pay 30-40 per game, I'm pretty sure that you would buy the flashcart (it's A LOT cheaper). However, some of us realize that this, in the end, only brings more harm to the industry. Now if you couldn't get pirated games, then i'm pretty sure there would be at least a few games that you would cave in and buy. People don't just pirate because they don't have the $$, but also because they are stingy and selfish. So I think in the end piracy has a bigger effect on sales then most people give it credit for. =)