3.7 Language detection in DS games
The DS features some firmware on which you can select from six languages8 (Japanese, English, French, Spanish, German and Italian) and games then have the ability to automatically choose a language. More than once have various languages been locked out despite being present in the ROM (there have been a few GBA games to have similar features with one of the most notable being Magi Nation although that is slightly different) although probably the best known example is Japanese in Advance Wars Dark Conflict/Days of Ruin (the first mainline advance wars/famicom wars never to appear in Japan) which was present in the game but even with Japanese selected it would default away from it. There were however cheats made that ultimately forced the game to run in Japanese. More will be detailed in cheats and game logic hacking later but it is worth noting it exists here.
Other games will allow the end user to select at boot time and maybe later on as well.
There is also a China only DS model known as the iQue DS (occasionally iDS) that features Chinese as well as a Korean model DS that is less well examined. There have only been a handful of Chinese games aka iQue games that are supposedly locked out but in practice it is a simple check. Chinese ROM hackers however are some of the most prolific out there and have translated well over one hundred titles into Chinese with most being of fairly good quality including several that did not make it out of Japan.↩︎