There is nothing as good and well maintained like in the DS era.
What you have today is only two options regarding flashcards: Gateway 3DS and Sky3DS.

Gateway 3DS would allow you to play games of any region as it overrides region lock, it would also let you use homebrew (that is not so prominent as in the DS era) and would you let do all kinds of hacks, as well as install eShop software and even normal games in the 3DS home menu.
But Gateway 3DS only works with 3DS systems that have firmware version 9.2 or below, and also requires some previous steps to work (eg. accessing a specific web page in the browser).
Sky3DS would only let you play in region games, no imports, no homebrew,  no eShop games. But it works in any firmware version up to date and doesn't require previous steps to work.

Also you have to take some precautions if you play online.

PS: What is your question regarding the 3DS XL?

This post has been edited by sarkwalvein, Fri, March 20th, 2015 at 20:37

To add to sarkwalvein's post, there also doesn't seem to be anything like the flashcard teams from the DS era, where they would all compete to be the first in getting something to work but everyone would be friendly. Now there is Gateway who bricked the consoles of users using a fake Gateway card.

There is an Android application that helps to do that stuff if we don't have normal network nearby (and probably even if we don't have any Wi-Fi/GSM access).
As far as I know Gateway can do on firmware 4.5-9.2 (9.2.0-20 to be precise), and emunand probably up to 9.2.0-20 as well.
About network play, not tested yet, some people including the creators of Gateway claim that network play works just fine.
Homebrew is accessible even with Cubic Ninja ROM (flip you Cubic Ninja high prices mwahahaha), maybe there is some other way, dunno.


I remember Acekard AKAIO had something similar, some kind of anti-fake-Acekard thing, not sure how much harm it was doing, but looking at the admin of AKAIO forums I would guess as freaking much as possible :3

Last thing about Gateway:

To be honest I haven't figured that out yet, but yeah they say it's possible.

It is not only just possible, but quite useful.
If you do this, you can take out your GW card and keep using the 3DS and changing betweenn games as much as you want.
With the GW card out the battery life increases significantly.
Also you can then use the card to boot GW mode in a second 3DS and play in both with only one GW card.

If you need help figuring out something related to this, let me know.

Thank you very much~
I will send you a PM about the problem

Ah! So I wasn't imagining things about my battery lasting shorter ._.

Thanks for all your help, fellas.

Thanks. Which one would you recommend? I think each game's version (PAL/NTSC) gets uploaded to the net right?

Precautions for what exactly? Could the DS get bricked if something goes awry?

That sucks! How come? Bricking the DS is such a d*cky thing to do, man.

Okay, I'm a little confused. I'm thinking I'll go in for Sky3ds, but I'm really just a noob. Could someone please help me decide which card is better for me? Any compatibility/other issues with these cards? Are the kernels coming around at regular intervals for these?

I would personally go with Gateway 3DS, if you have a system with an adequate firmware version.
I really enjoy playing out of region games on my 3DS (specially Japanese games that weren't released in the west), but it depends on what you want.

It is very difficult to brick your 3DS, but if you start playing with your SYSNAND, installing weird CIAs into it or deleting system files, I suppose you will be able to brick it. Do your weird things in EMUNAND only.
If you go online with a inappropriate game (ROM with public header) you can be banned from online gaming, up to now the bans only lasted one or two weeks anyway.

If you want things to be simpler, get the Sky3DS, but you will not be able to use it for region locked games or eShop games, and you will be more limited in general regarding what you can do.
About compatibility, I think both Sky3DS and Gateway have 100% compatibility.
Sky3DS is not updateable, if it gets blocked it is gone for good. The team releases new versions of the tool and templates used to copy games into the SD card anyway.
Gateway3DS is updateable, but it gets updated once every lunar eclipse, it also is blocked right now in firmwares greater than 9.2.

Thanks for your reply, sarkwalvein. You've cleared up all of my doubts.