One of the greatest games about games is that they can provide entertainment to people long after their creation. Like books, not every one of them will stand the test of time, but those that do are golden and become entrenched as classics in gaming culture. Old games often don't have the best graphics nor the most technologically advanced game systems, but some of them have a special quality to them that keeps players coming back. Games like Super Mario 64, released in 1996, have continued to be played by people around the world, with an active speedrunning community that continues to find out new ways to play the game even faster every passing year. Interested to know more about the world of retro gaming? Join me, as we take a look into this fascinating world.
The Retro Gaming World
In the 1990s and early 2000s, game development was just taking shape. The available hardware then was limited in its technical capabilities, and even simple 3D rendering was not commonplace. Despite that, kids were enthralled by these consoles as the games created entire new worlds that sucked them in. Consoles like the PlayStation and Nintendo64 were every kid's dream Christmas present then.
In my opinion, part of the unique charm of retro games stems from their jankiness. Even with all the rough edges, I felt that the game developers had a fiery passion for creating games. Every game was unique in its own way, with few predecessors in every genre. With no precedent, some of these were trailblazers in their own respect. Game developers put out games without having sales figures of similar games because there were none!
Source: YouTube
Card games were something that didn't really take off in consoles. The clunkiness of having to play cards and manage a card collection with just a D-pad was probably one of the reasons. Despite that, I spent countless hours in Digimon: Digital Card Battle as a kid - it was so unique in its own way! Even today, I know of a few people who love this game. Unfortunately, like most games in this era, it faded into irrelevance. Not every franchise had a chance to be Pokemon, but that doesn't mean they were any less good.
Some of these games still have a devout following despite having no sequels or news for years. If you'd do a little searching, you'd find many of these gems scattered all over the place - Monster Rancher, Suikoden, Bishi Bashi.
Emulators: An essential part of retro gaming
Game consoles, like most electronics, usually reach their end-of-life after a couple of years and are replaced with a newer and better console. Eventually, consoles that reach their end-of-life stop getting sold in retail stores. Once that happens, the games that are playable on these consoles also stop becoming accessible to the regular gamer. How can players continue to play old games then? One option is to buy the consoles and games on a secondary market. Another option is to play the games through the use of emulators.
Emulators are essentially programs that simulate another device - in this case, old consoles. To create them, lots of hard work, reverse engineering, and tinkering are required. Thanks to the people who painstakingly create and maintain these emulators, we are able to play old games easily.
To do so, all we need is to download the emulator for our console of choice, procure the game software, and off we are to the races. For example, to play Pokemon Emerald on the GameBoy Advance (GBA), we would download a GBA emulator like Visual Boy Advance and the Pokemon Emerald ROM. That's all that is needed to start playing Pokemon Emerald on the GBA!
Here's a list of a few popular emulators that you can look at.
| Emulator | Console(s) |
|---|---|
| RetroArch | A frontend for almost all emulatable consoles. Start here! |
| Dolphin | GameCube, Wii |
| ePSXe | PlayStation |
| PCSX2 | PlayStation 2 |
| RPCS3 | PlayStation 3 |
| DeSmuME | Nintendo DS |
| Citra | Nintendo 3DS |
Sidenote: ROM is shorthand for read-only memory, but is commonly used in emulator communities to mean game software.
Downloading ROMs: The Gray Area
If you're eagle-eyed, you might notice that in the steps above, you had to download the Pokemon Emerald ROM - essentially getting the game for free! Wouldn't this be violating piracy laws in certain countries? It turns out that this is a little bit of a gray area since it might be permissible under Fair Use if you own a legal copy of the game. If you don't, it's apparently illegal to download them, but it hasn't stopped multitudes of people from doing it. For a large number of games that have gone out of print, owning a legal copy is difficult - some of them can be hard to find, and some can be really expensive.
For the majority of players out there, they have no qualms downloading games that they don't have a legal copy of. After all, catching retro game pirates feels like an incredible waste of time when there are real threats lurking in the world. A quick search for "ROM downloads" on any major search engine will provide you with all the evidence that the threat of downloading ROMs being illegal hasn't stopped a whole lot of people from doing so anyway.
There are also often ways to convert the software from a legitimate physical copy of the game to a ROM. (i.e. ripping games) If you own a physical copy of a game, you can rip the game to a digital format and enjoy it on any emulator legally.
Personally, I don't see a problem with downloading unobtainable ROMs and emulating them. Buying a legal copy of an out-of-print game doesn't give any money to the publishers and game developers, but rather to resellers and collectors who have kept the old games. Forcing people to own legal copies of old games before playing them wouldn't do anything for the original game development team - so what's the point? If there was a reasonable way to purchase a legal copy of the game which also contributed to the original game development team and publisher, I would be all for it.
Retro Gaming Systems
To take retro gaming one step further, you might even want a dedicated system for it. Playing emulated games on a keyboard doesn't feel as satisfying as playing with a controller, and what better way to enjoy a game than to play it on the go?
Over the years, as ARM chips (the ones in most Android phones) became cheaper, people started to piece together portable systems that could serve as a dedicated retro-game console. These systems usually are able to run games on consoles up to the PSP era, with more powerful ones being able to handle GameCube and PS2 games. Honestly, I am quite tempted to get one as I really love playing PS1 games from time to time. Indeed, I got the idea for this post after watching Taki Udon's video on the Retroid Pocket 2+ - it looked really good!
Even without a dedicated system like the Retroid Pocket 2+, Android phones can run RetroArch, which allows you to emulate nearly any emulatable console. To enhance the experience, you can simply buy an inexpensive Bluetooth controller to connect to your phone. This way, it feels closer to the real console experience.
The Development of Emulation
Since emulation is based on tons of reverse engineering, some games may not run perfectly and performance can be mediocre even with a powerful host machine. One of the most active emulators in development is undoubtedly the Dolphin emulator. The emulator has come really far since its early days, and what we have now is the result of over a decade of painstaking and tedious development.
Emulators these days are even able to emulate local multiplayer over the Internet. Essentially, this meant that you could play couch co-op games with an online friend. The work that emulator developers have put in over the years cannot be understated.
For the yuzu emulator, and emulator for the Nintendo Switch, you can even see how they work in their monthly blog posts. I think that it's really cool to see how these emulators are created. In the future when the Nintendo Switch becomes a retro console, it will be thanks to these people that we get to relive the experiences on the Switch again.
Concluding Thoughts
Retro gaming and emulation have come a long way since their debut. For the people who did not grow up in the era of the PlayStation or GameBoys, emulation provides an easy and accessible way to take a peek into this world. Even if the games are decades old, some gameplay mechanics age like wine and are still very enjoyable in their own respect. If you do step into the world of retro gaming, I'm sure that you'll be able to find many gems scattered all around.