Retro Consoles
What do you prefer retro consoles vs emulatosr? Do you have memories of playing your favorite retro video games as a kid? I remember playing Super Mario Bros on original Nintendo Entertainment System back in early 90s. Afterwards, transition to Super Nintendo Entertainment System with Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat and Mega Man X. Although retro consoles have become more expensive nowadays to buy. You have to go to a retro gaming store like GameStop, DK Oldies and many more. If you go to gaming or anime conventions like Magfest, there is a lot of them. I got my share of retro consoles, I wish to buy or emulate like PS1/2, Sega Dreamcast and original Xbox. Don’t really have the budget for all of them like James Rolfe (Angry Video Game Nerd) and many other retro gaming content creators. Console is not the only thing that’s retro, there are PC and handheld devices.
Along with arcade games that convert to console with some drawbacks. For example, Marvel Vs Capcom Clash of the Super Heroes being translated to arcade to PS1. PSX version of MVC didn’t have tag team due to RAM limitations but Sega Saturn was perfect conversion. Some games don’t translate will into console because certain hardware not included to make game run properly. Same thing goes for emulators, don’t expect the game to run properly on your PC. While running the game on original hardware without issues is a great thing but its not 100% effective. Certain games might have alternate music, graphics and performance based on console hardware. That’s takes me into emulators, which gamers consider to be cheaper than buy original console.
Emulators
Emulators are trying to replicate of original retro consoles. There is some notable one like SNES9x, Project64 and Flycast emulators. Along with arcade emulators like MAME and Fightcade, which people still use to this day. For handheld emulators like DeSuME and Virtual Gameboy for gamers who want to play their 8-to-16-bit era games. There is a program called “RetroArch” which users to play every retro console game on the planet. Feel free to download it and try it out yourself. What about PC emulation? There is DOSBox to run your favorite MSDOS games but personally I have trouble using it. Emulators is good to experience instead of buying remastered version of original title. Think about it, some games like 3D are not compatible with different pc hardware. You might experience audio tearing and graphic issues.
2D games might run differently than on certain pc platforms. It has issues just like 3D games for example Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure running in Fightcade. That game requires different types of ROMS to get overall experience. Roms are data from original source games and gamers can download them on different websites. As well Emulators can be downloaded on sites such as The Emulator Zone. Myself, I played emulators in the past on my PC and Nintendo Wii. It was very enjoyable but had issues with some games running on emulators. Emulators offers online netplay as well and offline play with a friend. I know some games can’t be remade or remastered but that’s why people download them for free. In closing, buying them retro consoles is better in my opinion than emulators. You don’t get issues that emulators have, trying to run the game smoothly like original. The choice is yours gamers, which you want to experience of nostalgia.
Closing
There are emulators for android and Iphone as well. Mobile emulators are much different than on your personal computer. you miight have to download apk to install them. There are on the app store for IOS along with Google Play for android. I am not sure about emulators on web bowsers like chrome. There is a app called Bluestacks which is a emulator for PC to play mobile games. Whether you play the old school Pokemon games on emulator or buy it on original hardware. There is emualtor for handheld device like Game Boy, Neo Geo Pocket Color and more Emulators can be played on a controller, keyboard and Joystick if you still have one.
What about buying retro games on Nintendo Eshop, Xbox Live and PlayStation Plus? You are free to do so because developers added new features wasn’t present in original title. There is a company called “Limited Run Games” that remastered retro games like Tomba, Turok and Shantae. Check them out and support them for more retro games. If you don’t get retro consoles that’s fine but I don’t mind experiencing them again and again. I am done with emulator as of right now but rather run on a smoother operating system. What are your thoughts on emulators or retro consoles? Let me know in the comments below and thank you for reading this blogpost.
