first contact with emulation

content/post/2024/05/fist-contact-with-emulation.md

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+---
+title: 'First Contact with Emulation'
+date: 2024-05-13T09:28:00+02:00
+categories:
+  - retro
+tags:
+  - games
+---
+
+Joel recently shared a treasured memory of [his first contact with emulation](https://joelchrono.xyz/blog/first-contact-with-emulation/), which was a very timely post as early May's [Retronauts episode 609](https://retronauts.com/article/2244/retronauts-episode-609-the-state-of-emulation) also happened to be about the past and current state of emulation. These made me reflect on my relationship with emulation and how I first got into the retro gaming hobby.
+
+I grew up with a Game Boy clutched in both hands. I remember playing _Mortal Kombat_ on it besides the pool on vacation while everybody was having fun in the water. All I cared about was getting enough---but not too much---sunlight to hit on the unlit screen and batteries not suddenly dying on me. Sometimes kids from other families would join and watch me play. On those vacations, I took the Gray Brick to the pool, the beach, the restaurant, the city center. I never left without it. Life was good as long was I didn't forget to pack four extra `AA` batteries in my Game Boy-themed waist bag.
+
+When the Game Boy Color arrived, it was obviously added to my birthday wish list, and I eventually got a Lime Green one. It did prolong the life span of any Game Boy (Color) cart significantly, but by then I arrived at high school and started developing interests in programming on my dad's old Olivetti laptop, and eventually, on my own Windows 95 machine with Visual Basic. Games were still important, but I shifted my attention to the PC and skipped the whole Game Boy Advance era because of it. 
+
+We did own a SEGA Mega Drive but never had more than 6 carts for it. I remember playing Sonic 1, 2, 3, Aladdin, some Asterix version, and Toejam & Earl. Then I convinced my eldest sister to help finance a silver GameCube that came with Wind Waker, Super Mario Sunshine, and Smash Bros Melee. 
+
+By that time, in 2003, I started my computer science university trajectory, and met like-minded nerds that did crazy things to their PlayStation 2's like mod-chipping. I was all too familiar with piracy as my dad used to scour newsgroups to fetch ripped versions of PC games for us to try out, but I had no idea that was also possible for console games. My memory is a bit foggy but I think during my early university years I also started having a serious interest in emulation.
+
+Not because of console or handheld games---that would come later. No, instead, I wanted to bring back my beloved Apogee DOS games. The DOSBox emulator started appearing in 2002 and young me was an early adopter. As I gradually upgraded my desktop tower PC, I lost access to original 486 Sound Blaster hardware and ISA ports: there was no room for a second tower, and I didn't yet understand the concept of retro hardware, yet I didn't want to lose the ability to run retro software.
+
+On console level, the GameCube left a big impression on me. It was the first "serious" console besides the Mega Drive, and after finishing Wind Waker, I craved more Zelda (and after finishing Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance, I craved more Fire Emblem). Since I completely missed out on the GBA era, but jumped on the early and ugly first Nintendo DS in 2005, I started dabbling with GBA emulation. 
+
+And then it got real. after hearing university mates rave about Final Fantasy Tactics, and without access to a PlayStation, I discovered Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. I discovered Tactics Ogre: The Knight of Lodis. I discovered ports of classic SNES games like Zelda's A Link To the Past on the GBA. But I also discovered the ease-of-use of save states and fast forwarding on emulators that made slogging through battles with slow AIs and animations like Tactics Ogre much less painful. I _really_ got into the latter game, scouring GameFAQs for secrets, and even recording snippets using those emulators, like this video of mine from 17 years ago:
+
+{{< youtube _H8CF3VBBeo >}}
+
+Note the excruciatingly slow animation speed. I thank VisualBoyAdvance for helping me getting into and finishing these kinds of games as with the original cart I think it would have been impossible. Yes, I downloaded lots of ROMs, but I also started considering buying these games because of it. I ended up importing Tactics Ogre. I started buying GBA games to play on my DS (Lite), such as the Fire Emblem GBA installments. 
+
+If it wasn't for emulation, I would never have developed that much interest in handheld/retro gaming. I started maintaining my little illegal directory of ROMs that got expanded with SEGA Mega Drive games to see what else besides the 6 carts from my youth was available for that console. I discovered SNES games and concluded that I wished I had a SNES instead of a SEGA. I got into obscure Game Boy (Color) stuff. I got into Nintendo DS game programming, [helped porting DOOM to it](/works/dsdoom/), [bought an X-Ttreme flash cart](https://jefklakscodex.com/articles/ds-xtreme-cartridge/), and emulated adventure classics such as Monkey Island on the DS using SCUMMVM. 
+
+By then, my favorite websites were Play-Asia and Video Games Plus in Canada to import GBA/DS games. In early 2007, I bought a second-hand Wii and went nuts with the Virtual Console capabilities there. If it wasn't for my illegal emulation directory, I wouldn't have shown any interest in (re-)buying virtual access to these old Nintendo games. If it wasn't for emulation, I wouldn't have cared about physical video game releases and preservation as much [as I do right now](/post/2022/10/is-collecting-physical-games-worth-it-part-iii/). 
+
+Also in 2007, I got a PSP Slim and started ripping my legally bought UMDs because of the terrible noise and loading speeds of those small discs. The added bonus was rooting the PSP and being able to throw any of my current emulation practices on it. For some reason though, it never stuck with me, as that was also the year I started working, and time suddenly became much more precious. 
+
+Of course I knew you shouldn't download those ROMs from those shady-looking websites, but it was easier to do than getting your hands on ripped PC game CD-ROMs of the late nineties, and for me it proved to be a great way to explore and expand my taste. All those ROMs are long gone now, and I rip my own files using things like the [GBxCart](https://www.gbxcart.com/). When we were younger, piracy was considered the normal way to play a game. My parents (or my teachers) never taught me what was right or wrong when it came to the digital rights world, that was something that only gradually dawned to me. Once the DS Lite hit the EU stores in 2006, I started buying everything I really liked and never looked back. 
+
+As for GB(A) games, most of those were still finished using VisualBoyAdvance (and later mGBA), as I missed the ability to skip frames and quickly save or load a state, especially on the more grindy games. Nowadays, in retro re-release collections such as the Turtles' Cowabunga, the Castlevania Anniversary, or the Mega Man collections, including these kinds of features are the bare minimum, but back in the day, it was really special. I never owned a GBA SP, but slamming it shut didn't abruptly suspend and sleep the console like it does on the DS. I can even remember keeping the SEGA console on during a visit to my grandparents, hoping the thing didn't freeze when I got back, because Sonic 1 didn't have a save feature and I was almost half-way through that pesky water temple. I never finished the game because of it. 
+
+I really do have emulation to thank for a big chunk of my current gaming tastes and collection. I miss the Wii's Virtual Console and dislike the Nintendo's more recent but in my view questionable Switch Online approach. I own an Analogue Pocket and still prefer sliding in a real cart to transferring over a `.gb` file, even though the differences between both approaches perhaps faded lately.
+