Questions about Region Editing & PGL

[stebrick]

As we all know, playing a JP cartridge on a US Console out-of-region is technically illegitimate from the Nintendo's perspective (although in fact no one would care). I am one of those who mistakenly and stupidly bought a JP cartridge for my US console. Recently I notice from PKhex that when one playing JP cartridge on US console, the region of trainer info would change accordingly to the country in the console setting and so in this case the Country would be US/NA (as you could see in the picture[ATTACH=CONFIG]13724[/ATTACH])

I am about to tie my cartridge to my PGL account, which I never did it before. My main questions in the circumstances are two-folded:-

1. Which region should I choose to register in PGL? Should I follow the 3DS Region in the trainer section as indicated in the PKhex or Country?

2. Could I change any of the info squared in red after completing registration of the PGL? (I heard this may cause problem such as a ban)

My temporary approach is to borrow my friend's JP console and register the cartridge on JP PGL. However, since I could only play it on US console, I believe this would cause problem subsequently when playing on PGL. So, to avoid a ban (if this is the case), my view is that I could either (a) emulate my US console as JP region with the benefit of custom CFW (which would only change the "3DS Region" section to JP, but not others - i just tested); or (b) playing it on a region-changed firmware (but without any e-shop or NNID access, though offline update of the game is still possible). However, I am not sure whether these methods would cause a ban in PGL since it is going to some of the trainer info.

I must emphasis that this is simply to save a bit money on my already bought JP cartridge by not purchasing another console (which is obviously not wise given that the new console is about to release). It is not to deceive other players, taking advantage of them, or cheating them for an unfair battle so on. I sincerely hope this thread does not violate any rule of this forum.

Any thoughts and help would be very much appreciated.

[theSLAYER]

As we all know, playing a JP cartridge on a US Console out-of-region is technically illegitimate from the Nintendo's perspective (although in fact no one would care). I am one of those who mistakenly and stupidly bought a JP cartridge for my US console. Recently I notice from PKhex that when one playing JP cartridge on US console, the region of trainer info would change accordingly to the country in the console setting and so in this case the Country would be US/NA (as you could see in the picture[ATTACH=CONFIG]13724[/ATTACH])

I am about to tie my cartridge to my PGL account, which I never did it before.

Before we even proceed,

I'll like to point out that cartridge typically has 2 layers, one which is the Region data that was set (and update partition), and second layer is the game itself.

Once you bypass the region data, in Pokemon's case, the game acts as the region you were playing as.

Furthermore, unlike games like Mario kart where different region of the same game utilizes different rom ID (eg 0307 for Europe, 0308 for US etc),

Pokemon games use the same game ID universally across regions (example X is 055D, Y is 055E etc).

(additionally, it's exactly the same rom internally. That's why despite using a JPN cartridge, it'll probably display on your home screen as the "ENGLISH" Pokemon title screen)

so with that basis set:

My main questions in the circumstances are two-folded:-

1. Which region should I choose to register in PGL? Should I follow the 3DS Region in the trainer section as indicated in the PKhex or Country?

Follow the region that appears on Pkhex.

Since the console thinks you're playing a US cartridge (why wouldn't it, you bypassed region lock),

and the save even displays it a US,

so follow the save.

2. Could I change any of the info squared in red after completing registration of the PGL? (I heard this may cause problem such as a ban)

Don't use the cartridge on a non-US device, and don't change the information.

Under normal circumstances, the information won't change.

So once you apply for PGL, stick to it.

My temporary approach is to borrow my friend's JP console and register the cartridge on JP PGL. However, since I could only play it on US console, I believe this would cause problem subsequently when playing on PGL. So, to avoid a ban (if this is the case), my view is that I could either (a) emulate my US console as JP region with the benefit of custom CFW (which would only change the "3DS Region" section to JP, but not others - i just tested); or (b) playing it on a region-changed firmware (but without any e-shop or NNID access, though offline update of the game is still possible). However, I am not sure whether these methods would cause a ban in PGL since it is going to some of the trainer info.

I must emphasis that this is simply to save a bit money on my already bought JP cartridge by not purchasing another console (which is obviously not wise given that the new console is about to release). It is not to deceive other players, taking advantage of them, or cheating them for an unfair battle so on. I sincerely hope this thread does not violate any rule of this forum.

Any thoughts and help would be very much appreciated.

Just apply PGL with your own 3DS as it is.

I have multiple 3DS, a few that I region changed, but I never applied to PGL cause I couldn't be bothered.

But the fact that your save file displays as "US" is because the 3DS is programmed to not accept out of region cartridges,

so when you bypassed the region lock, the internal logic is programmed to assume you're using a US cart,

when why that is reflected on your save.

Of course, I'm not going to be responsible if you get banned, but I'm pretty confident that that is the case.

Just don't switch between different region consoles and you'll be fine.

Use the US console, and stick to it.

[Guest]

Every region/language of the Gen. VI games are 100% identical as far as the game's rom goes. The only thing that changes is the update data on the cartridge, which the game itself doesn't care about.

The reason why you can't play them out-of-the-box on an out-of-region system is because the update check fails, due to the update region being different, but if it weren't for the cartridge having update data on it, every region would have 100% identical data on their game cartridges, and thus, it wouldn't matter.

What Slayer said basically, but in fewer words.