Memory Stick hotswap savedata import possible? [Monster Hunter Freedom Unite]

[Darth Agnon]

Dear PPSSPP forums,

I have been wondering whether it's possible to do the "Import Savedata" function in Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, using PPSSPP?

The process on the PSP involves (more or less - been a while since I tried)

1) loading the game
2) creating a "New Game"
3) selecting "Import Savedata from Monster Hunter Freedom Unite"
4) when prompted, ejecting the Memory Stick with the "host" savedata, and inserting another Memory Stick with the "client" savedata, containing the character to be imported.
5) when prompted, ejecting the "client" Memory Stick and replacing the "host" Memory Stick
6) begin the game with the imported character, etc.

The reason I'm asking is that, from what I've tried, this is impossible to do on the PSP without the UMD copy of the game. I happen to own the PSN EBOOT version of the game, and so have been unable to import a character I want.

Does anyone know if this procedure is possible to be done using PPSSPP, and/or how to do it (specifically, the eject/replace Memory Stick parts)?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Many thanks, and thank you for an amazing emulator!
Live long and prosper.

Darth Agnon
Monster Hunter, Planeswalker and Sith

[LunaMoo]

I don't think UMD and PS Store copies of this game really differ in any way, they even share same ID while modified releases usually get new ID.

Either way importing character for new game between different saves is allowed normally in this game and does not have any special protections(which hotswapping in-game would:]), so if it does not work for you, it might be for example due to cheats used since most of the simple cheats made for PSP(and MH games have tons of those) does not have any safety checks and while they might work in some locations, they're actually corrupting the game in others.

Anyway to do what you want while technically supported, you don't have to eject/insert memory stick at all. Simply swap savedata folder you have now with one you want to import the character from by renaming/moving the files, it'll be "memstick\PSP\SAVEDATA\*gameID*"(where "memstick" location differs depending on your platform and user priviledges, on windows for example it would be either inside ppsspp folder if the user has full access to it or in "my documents" otherwise). If you're lazy you might even get away by swapping just the .BIN file inside that folder.
I would just backup that file, copy new one on top of it to import character when game asks for it, then restore the backup when game wants to save that imported character to your old savedata.

It's really nothing complicated, the only reason it might appear more problematic than on real PSP is the fact you're dealing with files and not eject/insert physical objects, but in the end you actually doing less as you can swap just required savedata file instead of whole memorystick.

[Darth Agnon]

Thank you very much for the reply! It works!

I got messing around with the SAVEDATA folder in PPSSPP a bit, and found out what you just said . Reckon the character import didn't work on the PSP 'cause the EBOOT and one of the savegames were stored on the same Memory Stick (as is normal), and ejecting the memory stick while the game was running didn't work Guess whoever ported MHFU to PSN didn't think about that...

PPSSPP worked slightly differently, in that "ejecting the Memory Stick" (i.e. replacing save files in the folder at just the right point) didn't result in losing access temporarily to the game file (ISO in this case), because nothing is actually "ejected" - the HDD and ISO stays there all along.

Anyways, now I've got an old character I made on holiday and haven't touched since 2012 on my main MHFU gamesave. Yay! Now I just need to use a roundabout method with an alternate memory stick to transfer over her original Felynes (OCD here).

Live long and prosper!

Darth Agnon

PS. Can cheats actually corrupt games/savedata?! I almost never use them (never on my MH saves), mainly on Patapon 3 (because it's reached an impossible final level and the grinding is unreal), FFT0 (because translation patch glitches) or one of my brother's joke MH saves...

[LunaMoo]

As for the cheats affecting savedata, unfortunately yes, in fact Patapon 3 you mentioned has a whole infamous case of what some people called "infection" where not only your savedata can be corrupted, but also savedata of people playing with you through adhoc:]. All caused by a poorly made cheat constantly writing memory at same location to change chest rewards, which ends up offsetting some important pointers a few moments later when it's trying to save them.

Most of such problems happen because PSP doesn't have much ram and in many games simply has to move stuff in memory quite often. Unfortunately PSP cheating scene on the west was kind of meh, most people involved never even tried to learn so there's a lot of potentially unsafe cheats out there. In worst case scenario something get's successfully saved which game was not programmed to see which might lead to crashes, permanently glitched items and other weirdness.
Fortunately it's not that common, typically if cheat breaks stuff it can be fixed by restarting/reloading the game with those cheats disabled.

Sometimes unsafe cheats might also cause instant crash on boot even while working in-game, so it's worth mentioning that PPSSPP also has game/info screen accessible via triangle, right mouse button or touching for few seconds game icon on the list where cheat menu can be safely accessed before launching the game:3.