Topic: Fire Emblem: Interesting things happen when you put a cartridge into a system that already owns the DLC...

Being a rabid fanboy, and a HUGE fan of digital downloads (ever since I lost a copy of World Ends With You at 79 hours played...) I downloaded Fire Emblem the day it was available.

I now have maybe 10 Dual Pass multiplayer maps I have never seen, since I rarely see my friends that own the game.
So, I bought my wife the cartridge. Before she gets off work, I was trying to speed run my way to unlocking multiplayer.

Here's where things get interesting.
I used my 3DS- hers is at work with her. (We're both video game testers for various companies).
When I turned on the game, and beat level 5, I was surprised to see armies of street pass enemies on my map... and that all DLC maps were unlocked. Well, OK, I paid for those on my download version... so does that mean one friend can buy all the maps, all his friends can pop in the cart, save, and presto, all DLC unlocked... for free? Apparently not. When I loaded a DLC map, saved in the level, took out the cart, put it into my roommates 3DS.... "Downloaded content not found. Please purchase the DLC and try again". OK, fair enough. But I can't even enter the save- it will be that much harder to download the content, then.

So, I went back to DS1, loaded my in-progress map, beat it, and went back to the world map with my exp and gold.... saved, played it on my other DS... and it worked.

So i can play a save that was used on a system with DLC, but I cannot actively play that DLC.

That's fair. But what will this do to the Bride class? Or a DLC only weapon?

Being a game tester, there are about 200 things I want to try. In the end, I will either
A) Have a save file on hers, with Bride class, able to access the DLC on my system but actually play multiplayer on hers-
B) Start a new file, entirely on her DS
C) If needed, simply buy 3 maps on her DS- the 3 maps I actually need.

Anyone else had to do this? I haven't been able to get to the bride map yet, as my people are level 2-3, and I think that map will eat us alive. I'll try to update when I figure this out.

Xbox and PS3 never had this problem, since their DLC went to harddrives, not a cartridge that can be played on other systems...

So in summary,
the DLC I bought on the downloaded version of Fire Emblem is playable on ANY persons Fire Emblem cartridge, for as long as it is plugged into my 3DS. The DLC saves to the system, not the game. Anyone can play it on my system, with their cartridge, even if they never paid for it on their own file.
Once they put the cartridge back in their own systems, they may or may not have access to content they have not actually purchased, but was 100% playable on my system.

That's interesting, I can't add anymore, but what is the 'multiplayer' element you speak of, just streetpass etc? I'm only a bit in, so I'm curious.

There are a few maps where you and a human controller other army battle against the AI... I think . "Double Duel (Dual Tag in the Japanese version) allows two players of Fire Emblem: Awakening to link up and challenge computer controlled units in a 2-vs-1 knockout competition.
Each player chooses three of their characters to battle against a team of enemy units. Players each send out one of their own units at a time while the other two sit on standby until they are called in."

I believe they have new dialog and character specific dialog. Hopefully its worth the $35 i spent on it, hmm...

I though the DLC was saved to YOUR SYSTEM NOT YOUR CART

so say you download 15 maps into your system... you can take 100 other copies of this game and play them on YOUR SYSTEM and all would have access to the maps...

but playing any of those 100 games on other systems would not since the DLC saved to the system NOT to the cart what is sort of stupid (who wants DLC on their systems of games they dont own anymore

That's what I was thinking- if you sell the game, the person who buys it doesnt get all these maps for free. Still pretty funny- she can load up on my system and get 100 street pass teams, play all the DLC, then enjoy the money and items on hers. I assumed it was a combo- the physical cart and the system TOGETHER were required to enable DLC. Meaning, a new cartridge wouldn'tbe able to access the DLC purchased on my system. I guess this method works best overall.

The DLC data is saved to the SD card, if you put another SD card in your system and try playing the game, it will recognize that you own the DLC, but the data for it isn't on that SD card. As for the game cartridge itself, I haven't tried that so I cant' comment on that part.

DLC is saved on your SD card.
Save data for digital games is saved on your SD card.
Save data for cartridge games is saved on the cartridge.

Bam, problems, since for cartridges, the DLC and save data is not in the same spot.

Do you think when downloading DLC for cartridges that it should be saved on the cartridge? (and thus, not be linked to the person's account) And when transferring save data from cartridge to system (in the case of buying the digital version of the game) the DLC should come along with it?

To HexZyle- it makes sense that the DLC would be account specific, and be saved to the SD card. But I don't feel it should be accessible from just any DS cart plugged in at the time. I haven't been able to beat the Bride area yet on that file, but it seems pretty simple to dash to someone's house, play all the DLC on their system, save, go back home and use all the wonderful items and characters. I know EXP and gold carry over... I'll see what else carries over. If I do find some huge exploit, though, I'm not making it public- Nintendo deserves our real moneys, dangit.

Well there's a couple solutions:

1. Link the cartridge to the console so that it can't be played on any others
2. Make it so the DLC is game-linked, not account linked: purchasing the DLC on a cartridge version would save it to that cartridge/save, if you later got the digital version, you could either repurchase the DLC for your digital version, or transfer the DLC along with the save from the cartridge to your SD Card (if you already have the DLC on your console, the DLC will be left on the cartridge and only your save will be moved)
3. Allow DLC be purchasable from the game's main menu, so that the entire game doesn't get locked up just because you don't want to delete your save.