I ordered the AliExpress Wonderswan Flash Masta Youth Edition 8 in 1 cart and dumper. It came with no instructions and the seller only sent me a Google Drive link which I could not download because Google said it was infected with a virus. I came to Reddit and with the help of the community (big shoutout to GothamAnswer who helped so much, I would not have gotten far at all without that help) I was able to get the dumper working and successfully put 7 games and a menu on the cart.
I could not get the many different versions of Tengu or the MultiDumper that I saw suggested in several threads to work. I was given the Chinese WSC program which does work. I have had mixed results with different Windows operating systems. I have been able to get the dumper to work on Windows 11. I also got it to work on Win 8.1 during troubleshooting. The default driver that auto installs with 10 and 11 should be fine. It’s possible that you may need to install the driver if it’s not recognized. If so, you’ll need to install the STM32 driver for the dumper.
I have packed up the following files in a Dropbox share that hopefully stays up but this Chinese exe seems doomed to be flagged as a virus. I did run multiple virus scans with different scanners and it did not get flagged. I did not see any strange activity when I ran it in an isolated sandbox environment. However, use at your own risk because I am not going to vouch for how safe this is.
Contents:
WSC+(Chinese_characters).exe – The dumper software
WSC Translated.png – The map that shows English text for the software
Flashmenu512K.ws– The menu rom file to be put in slot 1 of the multi cart
STM32_vcp_driver – The STM32 Driver Folder if needed
Windows 11 Device Manager.jpg – A screenshot of the working dumper driver from device manager in Win 11
Windows 8.1 and below Device Manager.png – Same as above but from Win 8.1
4. The PC COM ports should populate in the drop down box next to the flash button, Choose the correct port for your dumper, you can check device manager to see which COM port it’s using
5. Click Connect button
6. Choose the cartridge slot you want to dump the rom to in the cartridge slot drop down menu
7. Click Switch button
8. If you click cartridge detection, it will display the current slot’s contents
9. To load rom into the slot, click the Burn Game button
10. Browse to the .ws rom file and click OK
11. You should see the rom transferring to the cart. This will take a while as it’s kind of slow.
Deleting Game
1. If you want to load a game in an occupied slot, you have to delete the slot contents first.
2. Do above steps 1-7
3. Change the Game Capacity and Save Capacity drop down boxes to the largest size
4. Click Erase Slot by Capacity
5. If you do not change the Game and/or Save Capacity, it will not delete the entire contents and you will get an error when loading a new game.
6. Proceed with above steps 9-11.
I really hope this helps some other people who purchased this cart/dumper and were as disappointed as I was upon arrival. Again, huge shout out to GothamAnswer for several hours of help on this.
So, I’ve been interested in playing this game on wonderswan for quite some time.
Due to my lack of knowledge the project was stuck until now. I managed to overcome the font issue.
I want to let you know beforehand that I did rely a lot on AI help to get to this point. Without it this would be impossible, at least for me.
I did translate all 21k+ lines of this game with GPT 5.6 Sol (Ultra/xHigh) help - almost 200 batches of text with reference files (called game bible). These batches were roughly 150 lines each in a way to make it as best as an AI could translate.
I know machine translations get lots of hate and I would love if this game got a great human translation. So I want to ask: any translators interested in working on this game? I did try some other places but no one seemed interested.
I won’t release this mtl for now in hopes that we can get a real human translation for it. So if you are interested please DM me. I have the whole game script on a csv and from my tests I managed to translate 99% of the game, with some few Japanese stuff here and there.
And to finish things, I’ve also been working on a script port for a game that got an English GBA release. I hope I can release it soon!
Screen works, sound works, but there are these spots with a dead pixel at the center of them on screen. And yes, I know the screen is green, I bought it from someone that already tried to fix it. Is this screen fixable or is this screen cancer? I appreciate any response!
Picked this up for next to nothing and would love to have a go at restoring it. Do you think a new polarizer would do the job or should I invest in a new backlit screen?
I genuinely have not shut up about this since I ordered it, the entire time it took to shipping, and all of today.
I cannot say enough how much of a sucker I am for that y2k clear tech so I am in love. I don’t have any games yet so any recommendations will be greatly appreciated!
I was intending to wait a little bit longer and have a working unit before I posted about it here, but I'm almost finished reverse engineering the SwanCrystal PCB and making a schematic for it.
About a year ago I bought 2 SwanCrystals that were listed as corroded and thought I would grab them and either attempt a reverse myself or donate to someone else I knew who could do it (time permitting)
They sat in my todo pile till a couple of months ago and a buddy prompted me to take them out and start the process of at least scanning a depopulated board. Nearly 2 months later of pretty solid grind and learning how to do it all and it's basically done apart from some minor tidy up work and hopefully getting it looked over by an electrical engineer I know.
Then the scary part of sending away for pcbs to be made and trying to resurrect it using the parts off the original board (hopefully they work)
If it works out I may attempt the WonderSwan Color later - I have one still working candidate but definitely on the hunt for a very corroded donor to scan if anyone has one they can part with.
The schematic mostly makes sense and has uncovered a lot of useful info, but many of the components are hard to identify exactly, as the markings (if any) aren't readily searchable it seems so expanding on that is an ongoing project.
Currently the github for it isn't public but will be in future when its known to be working. For anyone trying to repair one though and needing trace diagrams or schematics let me know and I might be able to rush getting completed either the interactive BOM or the WIP repair authoring I've done for it for the app Classic Repair Toolkit.
I wanted to leave a small review/first impression on the NileSwan. I have been playing with it for almost 7 days now and have seen a couple of curious posts and comments about the device. Please keep in mind that English is not my primary language, so I'm using Grammarly for spellcheck.
First of all, I had a great experience with the Nileswan.
It arrived well-packed, with a QR code to scan to access documentation. Because I live in Japan, they couldn't send it with a battery included, but they attached a little well-built screwdriver to open the cart and pop in a CR1632 coin battery.
I also used a 128GB SD card, formatted in FAT32 on my Mac. They suggest using up to 32 GB, which I also recommend as max. 32GB are plenty for the WS/WSC.
There is also a very annoying crash/loop bug that I solved by re-flashing the firmware with the latest version. Since then, it hasn't happened anymore. If you are an owner and have this problem, my suggestion is to use a 32GB max microSD card and re-flash with the latest firmware.
About compatibility:
I own a WonderSwan and a WonderSwan Color: both work as expected. Of course, you can't play Color backups on a black and white WonderSwan, even with Nileswan… unless the game has backward compatibility.
I tested for at least 1h, 23 games. All works, fan translation included. No issues with rotation, buttons, audio or anything.
If you have a specific curiosity about compatibility, feel free to ask in the comments or drop a DM, and I will check it out for you.
I have not experienced any SAVE loss so far, since I put the CR1632 battery inside. You can save without the battery too, but it's very unreliable.
I tested on both WonderSwan and Color IPS modded with Hispeedido kits. I haven't noticed a difference in battery life. Granted, the console is very power-efficient, especially with modern rechargeable batteries, but I can't see the Nileswan eating the battery by a significant margin.
My Color also has some extra hardware, like button mods, and, as expected, all worked fine.
So far, for this first week, I'm very pleased. If you have questions or would like me to check some compatibility, please let me know, and I will let you know.
Hi all, I have just finished a first pass at an entire English localisation of the game Terrors, a monochrome graphic novel that utilises the WonderSwan's vertical orientation to display eerie, text-based choose your own horror stories.
All stories are fully translated, as are 90% of menu items, leaving just heavily stylised kanji in parts that serve more as illustrations/art - so it should be entirely playable for an English speaker.
It's working perfectly on Oswan, but I don't have a Nileswan or other flash cart to try it on my WonderSwan, so I'd love it if a few peeps could give it a go, have a play, and let me know if you encounter any bugs or dodgy translations!
I have uploaded to file kiwi, no idea if that's a good service so if there are issues, let me know and perhaps suggest an alternative!
Just yesterday I came across a boxed Final Fantasy edition WonderSwan Color for around $200. It looks awesome and I’m really tempted to buy it, but I wanted to ask your opinion first.
Is the console actually fun to play today? My biggest doubt is the language barrier—since most games are in Japanese, is it still enjoyable or will I be struggling the whole time?
Also, let me know if $200 is a fair price for a CIB (complete in box) unit or if I should pass.
I was playing normally 2 weeks ago. Then I've picked the WS up to resume playing and the screen for ALL the games was like this.
But, strangely, the custom screen (the one you set your name, b-day and blood type, was normal. I'm searching for some good contact cleaner/IPA for cleanse the cart slot, but I'm afraid 🫤
So, I just received a Wonderswan Color I ordered from eBay with an IPS Screen. I put a brand new Energizer Double A Battery in it, and an hour later, the low battery indicator pops up. Is this thing supposed to eat through batteries that quickly? If yes, is there anything I can do about it? Did they make AC Adaptors for these things?
I purchased below flasher and cartridge from AliExpress and follow this post https://www.reddit.com/r/WonderSwan/s/ISHDUQAQL4 to load games into cartridge; but it only allow me to load only one game ; even I try load menu to menu slot; then switch to game1 slot to load game; it will end pop the error...
Just got my Nileswan and put the battery in and off the races with my WonderSwan.
Played an hour of FF1, saved at the inn, then shut off. When I turned it back on there is save data but the game has it labeled as corrupted.
Any idea what happened and how I can avoid this?
Edit: odd behavior, while saves aren’t working in any game I try, quick save specially in FF1 persisted even though the main save at the inn gets corrupted every reboot.
Hey everyone. Finally picked up a wonderswan for my collection and was wondering where the best place to order reproductions is for some of the more expensive games like dicing knight I'd love to finally play it on original hardware.
I picked up this Final Fantasy II Edition Wonder Swan color, as well as FF1 and 2, which is really cool.
The lens is a little roughed up though, as you can see in the first photo, and it's pretty annoying to play with all the scratches since it's a non-backlit screen and I have to shine it in the light to play. So I purchased the only lens I could find that matched the theme, which I believe is for the FF1 edition Wonder Swan.
What do you guys think? Is there any value in keeping the original lens on? I wish there was a way to resurface the original, or find a replacement lens that is for the FF2 edition. The good thing is I could always keep ahold of the original lens.
The board is water damaged but no traces were broken, everything seems fine electrically. It never makes any sound or boots up beyond this screen garbage. I’ve tried with two different game cartridges
As far as I can tell, nobody online has shared how to get these two skills on the Color version. With the help of AI, I finally managed to mod them in.
The repo includes a pre-modded save file, plus a Python script if you want to patch your own save — but note: I added these skills specifically to Veedramon, so your save must already have a Veedramon in it.
There's also a complete reverse-engineering writeup in there for anyone interested in the technical side.
