Action Replay 4M Plus - Ultimate enhancement for your Saturn console

Chances are if you've bought a Sega Saturn, you're a hardcore gamer; and, chances are, you bought it to enjoy the vast weath of hidden gems that can't be had elsewhere, nameley the fighters and imports. Problem is, not only are you a little short on memory theres a reigonal lockout that keeps you from playing some of the games. Looking at the top of the back of the system you will notice an expansion slot, that's where is card comes into play. Let's break down what this card will do. 1 Memory expansion. The Saturn comes with a paltry amount of internal memory, I believe somewhere in the realm of 400 blocks. Bear in mind this can be filled up with only a few games, Virtua Fighter 2 alone takes up 185 blocks just for the settings; and sports games are notorious memory eaters. Think of it as the internal memory on the arcade unit of the 360 or the Wii. It will get you by for a short while, but intevitably you will need more memory. This card comes with 8000 blocks, more than enough to handle whatever is thrown at you. 2 Region code bypass. While the Saturn was considered a commercial failure here in the states, it was much more successful in its home country of Japan. It was supported from 1994-2000; in the states it was only supported from 1995-1998. Furthermore, because it's difficulty finding a market here, many of the great games never made it here. Games like the original Sakura Wars, Samurai Showdown IV, and Marvel Super Heroes vs. Street Fighter never were released outside of Japan. While some of the great titles never made it stateside, many of them were released in limited print runs and fetch a pretty high price even without a box or manual. Many of the greats such a Burning Rangers, Vampire Hunter, and House of the dead can be found in great shape for a fraction of the price if you're willing to buy the import. Supringly a good portion of the text in many of the titles will be in english. Unless you understand Japanese, I would hesitate to import any text heavy game such as an RPG, but otherwise the selection is great. 3 1MB and 4MB RAM Expansion. Remember the expansion pack for the N64? Same concept. Although no localized game ever utilized this device there are a handful of Japanese games that did. Games like Metal Slug, Samurai Showdown IV, and Xmen vs. Street Fighter require this card to run. While there is a 1 MB expansion card, it doesn't make much sense to purchase it when the 4MB card will function for both. It more or less just expands the techincal capabilities of the system. It works just like the N64 expansion pack, it will automatically detect it and boot the game, otherwise you'll get an error screen. 4 Action replay cheat device. This is admittedly the least neccessary function of the cart, but in all honesty, it's icing on the cake, and I'd rather have the function than not. When you boot your Saturn with the cart installed it will take you to the AR screen, nearly identical to the PSX and N64 counterparts. You select your cheats and apply them, they are broken down by reigon. It is possible to manually add codes as the pre installed codes selection is paltry, the information can be found online. The cart comes with a port on top to connect to a PC and add more codes from the internet, but I can't imagine the website is still running; plus a modern PC would probably be able to use it. And some versions of the cart don't have the port at all. Complaints While the AR is an amazing cartridge, it does have a few issues, none of which are enough to knock it from it's 5 star rating. First of all, it's kind of cheap feeling, the plastic feels lightweight, the color doesn't match the system at all, the front sticker has neon colors and looks hideous in my humble opinion. Long story short, it's flimsy and gawdy. The offical cart is much more solidly built and looks much better as it matches the color of the system. Secondly, the memory funtion of the card is limited to the AR menu; meaning all your memory has to be managed from that boot screen. Games will not recognize the card like an official one, even the Saturn BIOS will not read it. You must move files from the card to the interal memory and vice versa in order to use it, I reccomend just putting your most played games on the interal memory, backep up the card. This isn't the greatest solution but cosidering that a watch battery powering interal RAM is the only thing keeping your settings alive in your Saturn, and the cart is actual flash memory, it doesn't seem so bad. Also, consider the official card runs for $50 yet only performs the memory function, and this card can be bought for as cheap as $30, it's makes that pill a bit easier to swallow. Finally, it doesn't always read. Now this is not the fault of the cart itself. Sega appartently used cheap parts for the cartridge slot on the back of the Saturn. Unlike the Genesis cartridge slot, this one is NOT built to withstand the wear and tear of swapping cartidges. Sometimes you have to reinstert the cart a few times before it will read. It's a pass/fail kind of deal, when you boot the system you will get the regular boot sequence and the Sega logo shortly thereater, if it boots the disc or goes to the BIOS then it failed to recognize the card. If it goes the the AR menu, then it worked. Once the cart is in a readable postion it's fine and will read without fail. Give it a few tries before you dismiss the cart as "broken". Even though this kind of sucks, it only emphasizes the card's usefullness. Without this card you would have to hot swap the memory and AR, or an expansion cart if necessary. Not only is this a pain, it will wear out your cartidge slot very quickly. This cartrige does everyting you need. The only games that will not boot are games that require a ROM cartridge (not be confused with RAM). The only game I know that does this is King of Fighters 95, it basically has a preinstalled section of the game on the cartridge and uses it to run the game with less loading time. Since it needs the cart to break the reigon coding, and the ROM cart the only way to play this game on an American system is to mod your sytem. Conisdering how many other places this game can be found (and how medeiocre it is), I find it an acceptable loss. At the end of the day, just buy this cart, much like the N64 expansion pack, and the Xbox 360 Hard drive, it's a one time purchase that will add functionaly across the board. Highly reccomended.

Recently bought myself an old Sega Saturn to relive my childhood. I never had an opportunity to get any of the memory card upgrades when I was younger, so I thought I'd take the plunge and get this. This particular product has been around for a long time (the copyright on the software is 1996). It has cheat codes for most games up to about 1997, but it lets you enter your own if you want (and you can even delete the built-in codes if you need more space). It bypasses the region locking on the console so you can play import games. It has 4M of backup ROM to complement the system's built-in stoarge, though the console can't read from it directly; you have to move your game saves to/from system memory in the card's menu which the console automatically boots to if you have it inserted. It also provides either 1M or 4M of additional RAM for those games that require it; the cartridge software is smart enough to automatically detect the needed amount when the game starts up (unlike other RAM carts that had a physical switch you had to set before starting). The stock cartridge won't let you play backup copies of games (that is, games burned to CD-R). However, there is a firmware called "Psuedo Saturn Kai" that you can flash to this cart, which adds that ability. There are some ready-made (and more expensive) variants of this cart that come with that pre-flashed, but you also have the option of doing it yourself with this "official" version, assuming you can get the Saturn to load the flashing software CD the first time. A word of caution about the hardware in general; the Sega Saturn cartridge slot and after-market cartridges like this can be very finicky. The hardware is 20+ years old, and the cartridge slot itself was known for being delicate even back in its hey-day. When I first plugged mine in, the console got stuck in a boot loop. After trying various techniques to seating the cartridge, I was able to get it to load once and launch a game, but it then failed while the game was going through the intro/title screen. This told me that the cartridge itself was fine, and it was probably an issue of a bad connection when the cartridge was inserted. What eventually fixed it for me (at least for now) was a suggestion of disassembling the cartridge and plugging the naked board into the system. I did this, and to my surprise it completely fixed the issue; the cartridge loaded correctly every time I started the console, and I was able to launch games successfully without any hiccups. Apparently the plastic casing can cause the cartridge contacts to not line up properly with the pins in the slot. There are some suggestions about putting a piece of paper behind the cartridge when inserting it, or putting a piece of paper in the cartridge (on the back) to make sure it sits properly when inserted. For kicks, I just reassembled the cartridge since I double-confirmed the cartridge was fine, and so far it's continued to work properly. I'm guessing that by fully inserting the cartridge board into the cartridge slot without the casing in the way, the cartridge slot pins that weren't contacting correctly were re-bent in a way that it correctly makes contact now even with the cartridge casing on. So if you have problems, as a first step try disassembling the cartridge and plugging the cartridge board into the system. Remove the two screws on the cartridge, split apart the plastic shell, and pull out the circuit board (reverse to reassemble). If you still have trouble, there are other guides available with instructions on how to clean the cartridge slot and re-bend the pins. Make sure you are careful though! Overall the best upgrade you can get, and it's amazing it's still widely available for relatively cheap. There are some newer software options available to get even more out of it if you want, but you just need to be cognizant that old electronics like this might have problems. Thankfully, in most cases, there are solutions.

IF you take the time to pick up a Sega Saturn, then you need this cart. There is a reason that this cart is still highly in demand after all these years, it expands the potential of the system by leaps and bounds. You gives you more than enough storage for all of your game files, it gives you the expanded ram you need to play amazing games like X-Men vs Street Fighter, it gives you a cheat device, and most importantly it bypasses the silly region locking the system has. This allows you to play Japanese games with almost no hitch. There are some games that won't work notably KOF, but for the most part its probably the simplest region work around that you will find. The only real downsides to the cart are how the saves work and the liability that it can be for your cart slot. This does not allow you save directly to the cart like the official back up cart. You still use the internal system memory for your games, but you can back up and transfer saves from the cart when you first start up the system. The good thing about this is that if your internal battery dies you still have your saves. The other issue is not as big of a deal. The cart fits very snugly in the cart slot so if you take it in and out a lot, it has the potential to damage the pins of the cart slot. If that happens your in a bind as it likely can't be fixed and replacing it isn't all that easy or cheap either. The simple solution to this is that it never leaves the slot. You don't need another cart anyway, so no need to move it once its in. I bought mine more than two years ago, and it has yet to leave the cart slot. All in all this is a must have for any serious Sega Saturn fan. It isn't perfect, but at the end of the day it does so much for so little. Its fast, simple, and effective. I can't recommend it enough.

It could be since my Saturn has the Fenir instead of the regular disk drive. I try X-men vs Street fighter and the game boots up. When it gets to a certain screen, it goes back to the Saturn CD dashboard. UPDATE 6/26/24: I found out what the issue was. The Saturn’s cartridge slot is a bit finicky so when you plug in a cartridge (in this case the Action replay plus), you have to pull it out every so slightly (not to mention that it was stated in the instruction sheet that came with the Saturn that the Fenrir in it 🤦‍♂️ and I saw a YouTube video that mentioned it too). I did that and it works. I will leave it plugged in the Saturn so I won’t risk of wearing out the cartridge slot and I recommend everyone do the same. UPDATE: 6/30/24 It seems that it won’t let you save your games to it while playing. It will only let you transfer from the Saturn’s internal memory to the cart (and vice versatility). I have to take a star away from my overall score for that. I still would recommend it to anyone with a Saturn that wants to play import games.

Love this little thing, came highly recommended by the retro gaming community. Basically it acts like a Memory Card (with caveats), a Memory Expansion, an Action Replay Cheat Device (like a Gameshark), and it also allows you to defeat the region lock on your console so you can play Japanese and PAL Region games. It should be noted that this doesn't allow you to play backups (games burnt onto CDs). The only thing I've found to be kind of disappointing is the Memory Card feature only works when booting into the menu of the Action Replay. Basically you can copy save data from the internal memory of the console over to the Action Replay manually but you cannot use it as an actual memory card within the games. So think of it like a bank, you can put money in and hold it into that savings account but in order to use it in the game you have to pull it back over to your checking account (the internal memory). That's a bit too tedious in my personal opinion but it's well worth the $40 as a cheap solution for the other features at the very least. If you're look for more features I would recommend finding something that has Pseudo Saturn Kai flashed onto it (which allows the playing of backup games) and Memory Card feature which functions like a normal memory card would. Those devices are however generally more expensive but offer more feature-wise. For the $40, just having the ability to play the entire Japanese and PAL libraries is well worth it. NTSC games are very expensive and many of the Japanese versions are just as playable and incredibly more cost effective. An example would be House of the Dead. The Japan release can be had for around $30-$35 while the NTSC US Release is currently going for upwards of $500.00 for a complete authentic copy of the game. Highly recommend this little device, just make sure it suits your needs before you order it.

Works perfectly and allow imports to be played on NTSC hardware

I had a standard memory card for the Saturn, but this device is definitely an upgrade. It really is the ultimate cartridge for the Sega Saturn, and is a must buy for any Saturn owner. This cartridge will let you play import games, has the 1m and 4m expansions built in so you don't have to have separate carts and you don't run into a game that won't play because you don't have the proper expansion for the Saturn. Many import games were not released in the states due to the fact that the Saturn had a very short life here in the USA. Many Saturn imports are also very reasonably priced these days, some much cheaper than the American versions, which makes getting them more desireable and affordable than ever. In addition to these features this cartridge also features built in cheat codes for many saturn games. If you don't see the game you want to play there is the option to add your own codes, that you can probably find on the internet. This cartridge will not let you save directly to the cartridge though, for that you will have to purchase a separate Saturn memory card, however you can copy from the internal memory to the cartridge, and the process to do this is very easy and short. This cartridge is also very difficult to take out of the Saturn (if you want to do that), it is not something you want to keep taking in and out of the console, because you will ruin the cartridge slot on your console and then you will not be able to use It. My cartridge inserted easily into the console. I would recommend putting this in your console and leaving it there. For those concerned about the fact that the cartridge may not work, I purchased the newest version without the PC expansion slot on the top and mine works fine.

it's very frustrating to write this but after inserting the cartridge for the first time brand new, and after playing a few hours, something bad happened, at first my saturn was playing any and all import backups I threw at it, specifically here in my pictures you can see metal slug and samurai shodown 3 and dracula x backups, all games worked, then suddenly I started to get error messages when I tried to play metal slug later that day, the message reads "expanded ram cartridge not inserted properly" FYI I took this picture with the google translate image translator, then I kept trying other import backups like KOF 95 96 97, MSH VS. SF, final fight revenge, street fighter zero 3, and they all started to display this message and would fail to load, again, just minutes before all these games were working, I was enjoying myself playing MSH VS SF and was very happy, then I decided to look at more reviews and found out in a review from March 21 2016 left by N. Spolec claiming that some of the chips in these carts do not work correctly with 4 megabyte and 1 megabyte required games, all the games I had issues with require this exact feature from the cartridge, some games didn't even give me this message and would dump me right back to the cd player screen, just like this review says, so I think I received a defective cartridge which I will have to return because its very expensive, hopefully I get a replacemente because its fantastic when it works, odd thing too is all the other features work, I can backup my saves, transfers also work from the cartridge to the system memory and vice versa, AND it boots up japanese backups that don't require the 4mb or 1mb extra ram, like dracula x here you can see in my pictures, so I can attest to that fact, so again, when it works it is amazing, but for me this time that after playing with it a few hours then it failed is a very frustrating experience and I cannot say it is a good product, if they have a large fail rate, then they are poorly manufactured, I honestly hope the replacement I get works, if not I will end up requesting a refund and finding a different cartridge for my saturn

Let me play a Japanese game on a UK console, seems to work fine.

I have 2 Saturn's, model 1 and 2. This action replay works perfectly in both.

La cartuccia combina l'espansione di memoria ram, in realtà mai sfruttata nei giochi usciti qui in europa ma necessaria per eseguire alcuni titoli pubblicati solo in Giappone, e in più funziona anche come backup per i salvataggi. Chiunque possieda un Saturn sa che nel caso in cui la batteria a bottone sul retro venisse rimossa, anche solo per pochi secondi quando si scarica e viene sostituita con una nuova, tutti i salvataggi di gioco andrebbero perduti. Con la cartuccia le partite verranno comunque salvate nella memoria del sistema, ma sarà possibile trasferire i dati appunto sulla cartuccia, mettendoli al sicuro.

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Funciona perfectamente para mi sega saturn tanto japonesa como europea. Ha funcionado para la 1 y para la 2.