Anyone know the first ever game they ever downloaded as a ROM for an emulator?

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

Pokémon Emerald. The GBA Pokémon stuff was my introduction to emulation on PC. Our computer was SLOW and I was young, but it could run a Pokémon GBA game. Those games were about 7 or 8 years old when I discovered them. Hard to believe that Emerald is 20 now.

 

[SBLAST91]

Pokemon Emerald haha.

 

[ThirteeTooBeets]

I was very young and my parents weren't very tech savvy, but a friend of the family was and as a gift to me he downloaded N64 and I think SNES emulators and A LOT of ROMs for me to play. I can't remember the first one but it was probably either Mario 64 or Banjo Tooie for the N64, and for the SNES either Yoshi Island or Super Mario World

 

[starseeker300]

Tales of the World: Narikiri Dungeon 3 on GBA with VisualBoyAdvance
View attachment 66135

OG Tales of Series, my Beloved

did it ever get a fan translation?

 

[WildRiders]

Wario Land II, specifically in Japanese even though the only meaningful difference that penguins throw beer at you instead of purple spheres. I somehow got through most of that game with touch controls on a small Android phone in 2012.

 

[Leo-Dash]

did it ever get a fan translation?

Only partial english patch for the Menus, and the first two missions!
The project is basically abandoned since then

 

[A4lmond]

I downloaded Mario 64 as a .exe file and didn't understand why the emulator on my android phone couldn't run it I'd emulated games before but it was always my brother or dad downloading the roms before that

 

[Boofytan]

Tenchi Muyo for the sfc was one of the first. Off of Hotline (or was it called Hotwire?)

 

[Sinmenon]

It was either Final Fantasy I for NES or Final Fantasy IV for the SNES
After the FFs...I have vivid memories of Sailor Moon Another Story and Tenchi Muyo for SNES

 

[Carlnshake Carlnshake]

Had to be Super Mario Bros.

 

[kingofdragons]

darn its been so long I don't really remember. Probably a nes game, maybe Contra? or maybe FF1?

 

[Adrastia]

Phantasy Star 2. I already had it for Genesis. But I just got a PC and wanted to try emulation. Wouldn't you know, my first file was corrupt. I had to do it again.

 

[kingofdragons]

Phantasy Star 2. I already had it for Genesis. But I just got a PC and wanted to try emulation. Wouldn't you know, my first file was corrupt. I had to do it again.

To think files like roms now get download so fast you won't even notice, back then it would take a long ass time and might be broken or corrupt and you had to spend nights doing it again. And if somebody picked up the phone, oh shit, I don't care you need to call the ambulance I was downloading Backstreet's Everybody dammit!

 

[MegaDrive1987]

Pokemon Red and Blue. I put them on floppy disks with matching colors + the emulator. My brother told me I could go to jail for having them and I got scared and destroyed the disks ?

You know what I used to do similar when I was in school, I used to take a floppy disk in with Super Mario Bros. ROM and the emulator on it so I could play on the school computers although I'm not sure which emulator it was.

 

[RetroMule]

Donkey Kong Country 3, because I wanted to use game genie codes and learned about emulation in that hunt.

 

[twistedbee]

Harvest Moon for SNES. got a disc of random games and an emulator and that was the first game i figured out how to play.

 

[iisoide]

Probably WWE SmackDown! Here Comes the Pain for PlayStation 2. Either that or Midnight Club 3.

 

[ArkenDev]

Definitely Super Mario 64, I used to watch shit ton of those SM64 Blooper videos back in the day and I was able to somehow download Project64 and SM64 Rom as a dumbass kid.
I still to this very day have no idea how I achieved it but I did. It really goes to show that people who complain about setting up emulators are full of shit and are more incapable than a 7-8 year old kid who had problems with reading.

 

[Pearly]

It was Dragonball: Legacy of Goku 2, I was abolutely obsessed with dragonball and This was my favourite at the time barring budokai 3.

Long story short I relied more on trade in's back then to buy new games and I parted with the game and I couldn't find it again afterwards when I wanted to replay it, then I learned about emulation and played it on my PC, but not for long though, as I prefer playing handhelds on handhelds, so it's on my modded 2ds and ps vita now.

First rom I played on an emulator was megaman x on my friends dads PC. I had no idea what rom or emulator was at the time though.

 

[Cardboardtubeknight Cardboardtubeknight]

Donkey Kong Country 3 since that was the one I skipped out when I younger. It's good, a mainstay eveeytime I get that ball rolling

 

[IrkenElite]

I remember playing pokemon Ruby on our family pc when getting real hardware was unaffordable.

 

[aquova]

I don't know if it was necessarily the first game I actually downloaded, but I remember watching a very early Youtube Let's Play in 2007 or so, where the player left in some of the footage of him starting Sonic 3 & Knuckles in an emulator on his Mac. With all the naysay out there about Macs, I had always assumed they couldn't be used to emulate games in that way, so I was shocked to see someone who was actually doing it.

 

[OperationSpencer]

ZSNES, Final Fantasy V (the RPGe translation).

 

[Faust03]

I remember downloading earthbound for a SNES emulator when I was either in middle school or early high school, don't remember where I got the ROM from though.

 

[spacebear]

Man I learned about emulation for the first time like 24 or 25 years ago. I know what I used was ZSNES however the game I'm kinda fuzzy on. It was either Mega Man X, Earthbound, or Super Punchout. God this is taking me back thinking about this, even remember some of the earlier sites I used to use for roms.