Q about GC memcard regions

[weresheep]

Okay, I have ordered VJ and PN.03 (Jap) and I have a PAL Cube. Can I use a normal PAL memcard with these two games?

Thanks in advance.

-weresheep

[lordcookie]

You can use a PAL memory card as they are region free as long as there is no PAL game data on it. Otherwise you will have to format it.

You can have PAL and US game saves co-existing on the same card but not Japanese games.

[weresheep]

Excellent. Thanks for that. Suddenly thought I may have to buy a Jap memcard

Cheers.

-weresheep

[Abhisara]

On a related note, could someone clear this up for me?

I have a PAL Cube and play JPN games via Freeloader. All my JPN saves are on a separate card that's hasn't been used for any UK/US data. If I upgraded to a modded JPN/US Cube, would the saves on this card (originally created via Freeloader) still be useable with my new Cube?

[The Guppy]

Yes.

[Tiger]

On a related note, could someone clear this up for me?

I have a PAL Cube and play JPN games via Freeloader. All my JPN saves are on a separate card that's hasn't been used for any UK/US data. If I upgraded to a modded JPN/US Cube, would the saves on this card (originally created via Freeloader) still be useable with my new Cube?

No I don't think so !
Freeloader saves your gamedata in PAL-format.
I'm not too sure about it, but I once had my memcard formatted by a PAL cube with freeloader.
I had a JP-formatted memcard with my save of SCII, and wanted to play it on a friend's PAL cube with freeloader.
Didn't work, instead my memcard got formatted into PAL.

So I'm afraid you memcard with Japanese savegames is also in PAL-format because you used it on a PAL cube with freeloader.
Inserting it in a Japanese gamecube wouldn't work I guess. It will probably say it's corrupted, and want to format it.
With a USA cube there is no problem I think, because those memcards use the same format.

[MikeF]

The saves will work on the modded cube, but once they have been used they can't be used with the freeloader.

[rjpageuk]

The freeloader can not format a memory card to anything other than PAL/NTSC format, so all games are saved using this format.

You cannot convert from one format to another so if you have been playing JPN games through Freeloader you cannot then use them on a JPN machine.

On the same note you can save JPN games to the same memory card as PAL/NTSC games if using a Freeloader (please do not hold me responsible for this, but I tested it with VJ).

Incidentally, just to make sure, some games such as Mr Driller will only save to a JPN formatted card and because of this you cannot save using a Freeloader. I also think it may try to format your card automatically which WOULD wipe any PAL/NTSC saves you had on it.

I am not sure of the full list of JPN games which act like this.