Emulation is a Great Idea

by Brad Carsten

Have you ever been looking for an RPG that is very old? Most likely, your search was unsuccessful, and all you could do is read about how great the game is and wish you were able to play it. I had that same dilemma when I was looking for Dragon Warrior IV. I called every single used game store in the city of Denver, and had absolutely no luck. One person even told me that the game shows up about once a year, and is sold within days. I was never able to play that game until one day last June. I found a site that had NESticle as well as all the Dragon Warrior games on it. I decided to try it out and instantly loved it. I was able to play many of the games that I had only heard the hype about.

Another advantage of using emulation is the translations. Final Fantasy IIj, IIIj, IV Hardtype and V, as well as Secret of Mana II and Mother I have all been translated. This is the only way to play these games in English, since it is virtually impossible to dump ROM data into a cartridge.

Other minor advantages of emulation are: real-time saving and loading, built-in game genie and hacking possibilities. The only real disadvantage is poor controls. You can, however, buy a gamepad to use with NESticle.

I, as well as many other emulator users, do not do so for free games. I am totally against UltraHLE (a working N64 emulator). I haven't talked about legal issues in emulation because most intelligent people realize that it is illegal, and don't believe any of the myths such as the 24-hour rule.

In conclusion, I believe emulation is a great way to play games that you couldn't play otherwise. Nintendo is not losing any money because I wouldn't be able to buy the games either way.