Reminiscing retro games

[jaybzyanz]

Hey guys what was your reaction when you 1st found out that you can relive the memories of playing again your favorite retro games using emulator apps or softwares knowing that your old gaming consoles does not work anymore or just collecting dust in your home?

 

[Stingy Perry Stingy Perry]

I was ecstatic as heck! Realizing that I can relive those great years without using the original hardware.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24's icon TamagotchiTamaHero24 TamagotchiTamaHero24]

It’s a great feeling! Even the original hardware itself has so much coming out for it FROM THE FANS! Emulation is FROM THE FANS. I’m not the guy to gas up emulation to the highest, but it’s from US! We’re keeping these games alive! And keeping them interesting! There’s never not something to see or find when exploring game history, and that matters so much.

 

[Giggling Tilly]

I've never really stopped playing my systems. I've also never liked emulators much, always being one of those "real hardware or nothing" people. I was a teenager when the first emulators for systems like the Atari 2600 and NES started to pop up in the mid-90s, and I was like, "meh!" It was fun checking them out for some geeky reasons, and obviously, game preservation is a very important thing, but at the end of the day, I always ended up returning to the original hardware.

When one of my systems died, I just went out and bought a new one. Once I got a proper job, I started to buy spares too, especially for the systems I liked the most. Unfortunately, it looks like I'm starting to feel my age, and with emulators doing pretty well now, I do find myself using them now and then. That's simply because real hardware can be too tiresome. Still, I prefer the originals over emulators. It's just... you know. (Insert Danny Glover's quote from Lethal Weapon here)

 

[PSVitaForever]

Something like this :)

 

[Esidemoken]

At the beginning I respected them as an alternative, later when I wanted to get original retro games and I saw the price that they had I saw the emulators as a very good option, but until I saw all the improvements that can be put to the games is when I understood that they were the best alternative.

 

[DeadVoivod]

For me it started basically with MAME, some older version, I think it was v0.21 and I loved it because I could play all the games from my youth from the end of 70s to mid 80s, plus you could not have them on any other system, thus emulation was mandatory.

 

[Xeno]

I've been playing around with emulation ever since the ZNES and Nesticle days. It was awesome being able to re-play games and also try games that I missed, like Final Fantasy and Legend of Zelda on SNES. It's only gotten better over the years with things like Raspberry Pi, Steam Deck and other retro emulation handhelds. I have an Ambernic rg35xxh that I bring with me to play at work.

 

[Kamako]

Loading up Kega Fusion and seeing Sonic 2 boot correctly blew my goddamn mind. Finding websites like this continues to blow my mind. I'm so glad and grateful that there're many people out there that love video games just as much, if not more than I do, and put their talents towards preserving them.

 

[NeonKnights]

For me it was in the early 2000's when I played these Castlevania games for the first time since the 80s and 90s on my sony vaio laptop. It was great. Also my NES still works and I still play Castlevania on it. It's one of the NES games I can speedrun.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

It was nothing short of a mind-blowing experience.

I remember running those Genesis games I had only experienced as rentals again... It was heavenly.

 

[DOOP169]

I discovered emulation around 2001 with ZSNES, it was pretty mind-blowing. The advances that we keep seeing with emulation are amazing too especially with Saturn, and PS2. And discovering fan translations introduced me to some Japanese only RPG's that replaced some of my all time favorites, I didn't think that was even possible like Rudra no Hihou, G.O.D, Metal Max Returns. And I won't even get started on Shining Force III parts 2 and 3, I was 17 years old when I beat the first part and was so pissed when I realized 2 and 3 weren't coming to the U.S. those translations fixed a little tiny part of me that had been broken since 1998.

 

[MajesticSiN]

At first I was all

but then I was like

 

[_Lorenzo_]

For me, discovering the world of emulators and frontends was absolutely amazing — especially because I’m naturally a bit lazy (having to constantly plug in and swap out cartridges or change CD-ROMs was pure agony for me…). At the same time, I really want to preserve my personal collection of consoles and games for the long run.

 

[legsrjust4show]

The first time I figured out how to emulate SNES games by downloading stuff through KaZaA was pure magic. I went a bit download crazy, especially on terrible dial-up internet that my Windows Me computer was hooked up to, but oh man I got to experience Earthbound! I got to finally play Mega Man X3*! I played Kirby Super Star! I discovered there were other Mystical Ninja games and they were originally known as Ganbare Goemon and I played them completely in Japanese with no idea what the fuck was happening and these were sequels that went completely fucking crazy too which made it even funnier!

*I still haven't finished Mega Man X3 to this day??? I've played the rest but just haven't gotten around to it???

Then I found NES emulation and got really into the classic Mega Man games fully and even played all of River City Ransom with my sibling like four times in a row.

Magical stuff.

 

[NardoBoom]

It was the greatest day of my life. It was a game changer for me, i even ignored my ps1 and N64 for a few months while i only played NES, GB and sega genesis emulators.

 

[DjQuick2008]

Keep discovering new games all the time for me im having a blast. I limited myself to arcade machines like street fighter 2 or wrestlefest growing up those are the 2 i remember playing the most. Neo geo cabinets were everywhere on spanish holidays.

Post automatically merged: Jun 15, 2025

It was the greatest day of my life. It was a game changer for me, i even ignored my ps1 and N64 for a few months while i only played NES, GB and sega genesis emulators.

i never had a dreamcast growing up and so impressed with the system.

 

[Isegrim]

I got my first taste from buying sidewalk CD's with emulators and ROMS in it since emulation wasn't well known then. The best part was when it was arcade games, games I wished I could own myself but too expensive to buy a PCB, monitor and joystick. Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo was my most wished game but it was only available on 3d0 and I could never buy a system for one game only. I sorely wished it got a release for the SNES but nope. Being able to play the real game on my computer was only the beginning.

The second best part I discovered about emulation was save states. I realized that even if I had the arcade version of Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, I would still have to fulfill the requirements to reach Akuma the secret boss to have a fully satisified playthrough and then beat him and if I didn't, he couldn't be continued upon (depending on the version). Which was annoying. But with save states, all I really needed was to reach Akuma once and make a save state before, then I could fight him again and again until I won. I could even play the next day, load my save and fight Akuma right off the bat. I could even make a slew of pre-battle saves against Akuma with every single character. That was when I realized, emulation was in some ways, even better than the actual arcade version.

Which is why I'm annoyed Capcom has nerfed the save states in the new Capcom Fighting Collection 2. You can't save anywhere, only the start of a match and you could only have one save state for the entire collection.