I tried making a Fire stick an emulation machine with RetroArch but didn’t get very far because I’m pretty sedentary at home and prefer my bedroom to the living room (the television has been moved to the bedroom for a computer monitor.) I don’t know why; I guess I prefer having console games, computer games, and TV all in one machine (I use the YouTube TV app on my PC.) I don’t want an entire change of scenery depending on what platform games are on.

Anyway I’ve been playing a lot more since moving to the bedroom, maybe an hour per session when I play. I think I’m going to knock out a level or two in Secret Agent when I’m done with this post, and I’m off tomorrow so it’s back to the Pit.

I remember getting into emulation around 1997. You had to download games from sketchy sites because they didn’t have torrents or online file sharing. If you’ve ever been to a warez site or a marijuana dispensary, it’s that kind of shady vibe about those emulation sites. I didn’t know what ROMs were (hey, I was like 12yo) but one site has it burnt into my brain: I was interested in anything Nintendo and Webcrawler (the Google of the day) put emulation sites at the top of the list because I guess it didn’t have a filter.) It was a crappy Geocities or Angelfire or whatever site, but on the site it said, “Now that you’ve pirated some games, download an emulator” (I used Nesticle and SNES9x). I remember my computer or monitor couldn’t display multiple layers on SNES at first; fog is a big concern because without multiple layers you just have a layer of 100% fog on top.

There was also the DeJap fan translation of FF5, a game that was kind of a holy grail at that point, available only as a (text-heavy) Japanese import. I think this was the first complete fan translation, and the field has really taken off since then. There aren’t any major (or many minor) RPGs that haven’t been translated.

LOL at Sierra games being “old and rough around the edges”. Try playing and beating Akalabeth (1979), Janitor Joe (1984), the Star Wars arcade game (1983), Wasteland (1988) or Demon’s Winter (1985). I had Joe and Star Wars on the computer as a kid (this is back when the non-rich could afford only one PC in the house) and downloaded Akalabeth in the late ’90s when it was released as a free download.

Anyway those (commercial) retro gaming handhelds or consoles, like abandonware, is completely breakjng copyright law but the video-game companies don’t go after emulation before the most recent console or two because they don’t care or just don’t feel like wasting the resources on old games no longer commercially available.

Dragon Quest/Warrior III is indeed the shit and the first in the series that’s not too primitive for (most) people to play today. The first and second games are classics but the experience required to gain a level is roughly literally an exponential progression.