Phantasy Star Serial Number & Access Code Workaround?

[Zoex]

I have a DreamPi on the way and am looking forward to Playing Phantasy Star Online actually online for the first time ever soon. I have beaten the game a couple times offline, and still have the memory card for the character I used. The problem is I do not have the Dreamcast I played it on, nor do I have a way to get the serial number or key that was used on the Dreamcast this character was made on (if it was even legit) The game sees the characters but won't load them.

I actually was not aware this was a thing as I had made the character on a friends system, and then later bought it off him (this was over 15 years ago now). Had I known I would not have gotten rid of that system (the drive had died, so I got a working one)

Long story short, I want to save this character and use it on this system. Is there really no way around this issue? Is this not something that can be hacked like everything else?

[mistamontiel]

You do have the SNAK that was tied to your chars yes?

http://psopalace.sylverant.net/

There is DCFlash there that is brief it wipes the flash so you can key em in

I got another Dreamcast and I picked right back up. Also do check out the torrent for Ives' incredible CDIs! Autoconnects to Sylverant and filesort fixed so laser does not die unlike from the GD

[Zoex]

I do not have the serial number or key used to make these characters. If there is some way to tell what numbers were used I'd like to hear it.

[mistamontiel]

Oh dear missed the thread title

The only workaround is the hunters' license check

Chars are tied to their SNAK

EDIT: The game sees the characters but won't load them hmmm.. also if they were offline-only wouldn't that mean there was never prompt for SNAK

[Zoex]

From my understanding they will not load because they were made on a different Dreamcast.

Is there a way to find the serial number and key used to make a character with a save file editor or something? That info has to be in the save file somewhere, it doesn't seem like it would be hard to find.

[mistamontiel]

I got another Dreamcast last year now serving as my primary, my two chars play no issue

They're not tied to Dreamcasts, it's the SNAKs that are tied

Not certain if the SNAK could be revealed sorry, but what baffles me is if play only offline does it really request the SNAK

[Ragfish]

I believe it does request the SNAK even for offline play. I remember starting my PSO character before getting my Dreamcast online and being very careful to make sure I typed them in correctly because I planned on playing online and I couldn't tell if those circles were 0s or Os.

[Zoex]

It asks you to enter these numbers the first time you boot the game up. It also gives you a message saying you can't use your characters on any other system.

The system saves these numbers in it's flash memory, and that means the save files will only load on a system that matches the saved numbers.

I think using a hex editor to pull the serial and key off my memory card would work, but I don't know how to do such a thing.

[Aleron Ives]

Your characters will only load if the serial saved in the VMU file matches the serial saved in the flash memory. If you don't have that Dreamcast anymore and you don't have your serials written down, your save files from back then are useless. You have to delete them and start over.

[Zoex]

I can see the data that's on the VMU in a hex editor. What I'm looking for has to be in there to match against what's saved to the system. I just need a way to find the address lines that have the serial and key.