A new emulator for Nintendo’s Virtual Boy console on 3DS can play games in grayscale stereoscopic 3D at full speed, without the headache-inducing eyestrain of the original hardware.
A new emulator for Nintendo’s Virtual Boy console on 3DS can play games in grayscale stereoscopic 3D at full speed, without the headache-inducing eyestrain of the original hardware.
by Slinkwyde
27 Comments
Slinkwyde
**Submission statement**
The [Virtual Boy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Boy) system in 1995 was Nintendo’s biggest commercial failure ever. It was unfinished, ahead of its time, had an unusual form factor, could only show red and black, causing headaches and eye pain. Only 22 games were officially released for it, with [Virtual Boy Wario Land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Boy_Wario_Land) being the most notable (generally positive reviews, despite the drawbacks of the system it was on).
When Nintendo released the 3DS with glasses-free stereoscopic in 2011, you’d think that would have been a prime opportunity for Nintendo to release a full color remake of Wario Land for the 3DS, but they never did. A homebrew Virtual Boy emulator for the 3DS called r3Ddragon was released in 2015, but was effectively unusable. It couldn’t run games at usable frame rate even on New 3DS, it didn’t support stereoscopic 3D, and it had not been updated by its developer since 2017.
Four days ago, that all changed. Someone released a fork of that emulator called [Red Viper](https://github.com/skyfloogle/red-viper), and now (29 years after the Virtual Boy launched) there is finally a way to play Virtual Boy games in stereoscopic 3D at full speed. All that’s required is a modded 3DS, the emulator, and the ROMs that you supply yourself. So far only officially released games are supported (not VB homebrew) and the 3D slider can only turn the 3D effect either fully on or fully off, but this is a major development in Virtual Boy emulation.
I tried it out earlier this week after Good Vibes Gaming brought it up. It works great, and it’s awesome to finally be able to play Virtual Boy games! I never knew the system was 32-bit, it is weird seeing Nintendo’s spritework in such detail in games from the mid-90’s.
Glad that, once again, fans did what Nintendon’t. But I think it was a real missed opportunity from Nintendo not to do this themselves! Hope they don’t DMCA it, I’d be careful about sharing this around.
staveware
I have been using it for a few days. It’s basically perfect. No notes.
Prudent_Move_3420
I dont think they will sue them, they only do this if it competes with anything they put out in any way and I heavily doubt they want to release Virtual Boy games on NSO
jflatt2
You could have done this a decade ago on a 3D TV
plywood747
It’s incredible…I’m right into VB Mario Land. It looks and plays fantastic.
Tristezza
I’m amazed nintendo gets away with being as incompetent and stuck in the past as they are. Any other company wouldn’t get away with it.
PeaceBull
Not once did I ever get a headache from my virtual boy
Slinkwyde
In my other copy of this post on the /r/retrogaming subreddit, /u/VirtualRelic (who has the original Virtual Boy hardware) made a good point.
> For those wondering what’s it like to play a real Virtual Boy system, it is important to remember that the VB display puts your eyes in total darkness with only the red shades being the light source. […]
>
> For Red Viper on a 3DS, with the red palette enabled, the sharp pixels get pretty close to the original, but unless you play in a dark room or otherwise block out all external light and hold the 3DS screen up close to your eyes, you’re not really getting the full VB experience.
I have blackout curtains on my windows, and it’s now evening here, so when I turn off all the lights it is nearly pitch black. I tried Wario Land again after reading his comment, and I can confirm that it looks a lot better in the dark than it did during the daylight. More of an “experience.” I’ll never use it in the red and black mode and I’m not going to bother holding it up to my face, but yes, definitely try it in a dark room if you can.
PS- Blackout curtains can also help with falling asleep, watching movies, and reducing energy bills, so they have a broader use than just VB emulation.
Far_Distribution1623
Tell me you’ve never actually played a Virtual Boy without telling me
Renegade_451
Better sue this one, too.
rwood1020
There’s a virtual boy emulator for the meta quest and you can change the color palette.
It’s awesome
NoMeasurement6473
Chat should I actually buy a virtual boy?
KasseanaTheGreat
I set this up on my modded New 3DS a few days ago and honestly it feels like these games were made for the 3DS. Like if you played the 3D classics NES/Genisis re-releases on the 3DS Eshop that’s closest thing to this except these virtual boy games actually benefit from having the depth of the 3D. If you have a modded 3DS (of if you’ve been considering modding yours, it isn’t particularly difficult if you can follow instructions) I highly recommend checking them out on a 3DS. Honestly it really shows how much of an opportunity Nintendo missed by not putting these games out on the 3DS virtual console
Lightmanone
THANK YOU.
I’ve waited waaaaay too long for this. I was never able to play WarioLand Virtual Boy without reaching way too deep in my pocket. And now, I can play it without getting a massive headache even. THANK YOU. This is fantastic!
GreenTeaBD
There’s also an open source emulator for Quest (and the Go? If it still runs there?) too that is, in my opinion, the single best way to play VB games now.
You still get the 3d effect of the original games too, still in a headset, etc. but you get all the advantages of a modern headset. The sense of scale (things didnt look as big in an actual VB, hard to explain), you can move your head around, much nicer screens. Just, everything about it is better.
I’ve always defended the VB. I dont think it was as bad as people act like it was, for the time it was very cool. It just never got the chance to really develop and was a little ahead of its time. Hell, I think even the weird only red LED rapidly shifting and bouncing off a mirror display tech is actually cool and should be experienced in person at least once, it doesn’t feel like other display techs.
And Wario Land is legitimately a great game worth playing today. A bunch of other games are really fun, too.
The problem is though that it’s an open source project maintained by one guy. At one point the emulator just stopped working on a new Quest firmware. I messaged him about it, he got it working again and posted an update, but now on Quest 3 for some reason it’s too dark. It could really use a little support to keep it going, enough that if I ever get the time I’m going to look into it.
Totally recommend it, though.
spaghefoo
PER-FECT
ahaisonline
seriously? just a few weeks ago i was looking for an emulator like this, and the best i could find ran horribly and had poor compatibility. and now this exists all of a sudden?
…well, when the gods send you a gift, you click on the download link.
27 Comments
**Submission statement**
The [Virtual Boy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Boy) system in 1995 was Nintendo’s biggest commercial failure ever. It was unfinished, ahead of its time, had an unusual form factor, could only show red and black, causing headaches and eye pain. Only 22 games were officially released for it, with [Virtual Boy Wario Land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Boy_Wario_Land) being the most notable (generally positive reviews, despite the drawbacks of the system it was on).
When Nintendo released the 3DS with glasses-free stereoscopic in 2011, you’d think that would have been a prime opportunity for Nintendo to release a full color remake of Wario Land for the 3DS, but they never did. A homebrew Virtual Boy emulator for the 3DS called r3Ddragon was released in 2015, but was effectively unusable. It couldn’t run games at usable frame rate even on New 3DS, it didn’t support stereoscopic 3D, and it had not been updated by its developer since 2017.
Four days ago, that all changed. Someone released a fork of that emulator called [Red Viper](https://github.com/skyfloogle/red-viper), and now (29 years after the Virtual Boy launched) there is finally a way to play Virtual Boy games in stereoscopic 3D at full speed. All that’s required is a modded 3DS, the emulator, and the ROMs that you supply yourself. So far only officially released games are supported (not VB homebrew) and the 3D slider can only turn the 3D effect either fully on or fully off, but this is a major development in Virtual Boy emulation.
Good Vibes Gaming released a video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gplTQSUphNA
Make sure to get it before Nintendo sues the emulator into next week for robbing them of millions of sales of Mario Clash.
oh oh Nintendo suing another company in 3 2 1….
This is what I wanted from Nintendo ten years ago.
W
Get it while you can because Nintendo ain’t about to let you play an improvement for free.
This seems obsecenely overdue for this specific piece of hardware.
All of you saying Nintendo is going to shut down this clearly haven’t heard of retroarch. I think will be just fine
[Aw shit, Ninty heard you](https://media.tenor.com/9caUAXZmCqwAAAAe/guardian-stalker-legend-of-zelda.png)
I tried it out earlier this week after Good Vibes Gaming brought it up. It works great, and it’s awesome to finally be able to play Virtual Boy games! I never knew the system was 32-bit, it is weird seeing Nintendo’s spritework in such detail in games from the mid-90’s.
Glad that, once again, fans did what Nintendon’t. But I think it was a real missed opportunity from Nintendo not to do this themselves! Hope they don’t DMCA it, I’d be careful about sharing this around.
I have been using it for a few days. It’s basically perfect. No notes.
I dont think they will sue them, they only do this if it competes with anything they put out in any way and I heavily doubt they want to release Virtual Boy games on NSO
You could have done this a decade ago on a 3D TV
It’s incredible…I’m right into VB Mario Land. It looks and plays fantastic.
I’m amazed nintendo gets away with being as incompetent and stuck in the past as they are. Any other company wouldn’t get away with it.
Not once did I ever get a headache from my virtual boy
In my other copy of this post on the /r/retrogaming subreddit, /u/VirtualRelic (who has the original Virtual Boy hardware) made a good point.
> For those wondering what’s it like to play a real Virtual Boy system, it is important to remember that the VB display puts your eyes in total darkness with only the red shades being the light source. […]
>
> For Red Viper on a 3DS, with the red palette enabled, the sharp pixels get pretty close to the original, but unless you play in a dark room or otherwise block out all external light and hold the 3DS screen up close to your eyes, you’re not really getting the full VB experience.
I have blackout curtains on my windows, and it’s now evening here, so when I turn off all the lights it is nearly pitch black. I tried Wario Land again after reading his comment, and I can confirm that it looks a lot better in the dark than it did during the daylight. More of an “experience.” I’ll never use it in the red and black mode and I’m not going to bother holding it up to my face, but yes, definitely try it in a dark room if you can.
PS- Blackout curtains can also help with falling asleep, watching movies, and reducing energy bills, so they have a broader use than just VB emulation.
Tell me you’ve never actually played a Virtual Boy without telling me
Better sue this one, too.
There’s a virtual boy emulator for the meta quest and you can change the color palette.
It’s awesome
Chat should I actually buy a virtual boy?
I set this up on my modded New 3DS a few days ago and honestly it feels like these games were made for the 3DS. Like if you played the 3D classics NES/Genisis re-releases on the 3DS Eshop that’s closest thing to this except these virtual boy games actually benefit from having the depth of the 3D. If you have a modded 3DS (of if you’ve been considering modding yours, it isn’t particularly difficult if you can follow instructions) I highly recommend checking them out on a 3DS. Honestly it really shows how much of an opportunity Nintendo missed by not putting these games out on the 3DS virtual console
THANK YOU.
I’ve waited waaaaay too long for this. I was never able to play WarioLand Virtual Boy without reaching way too deep in my pocket. And now, I can play it without getting a massive headache even. THANK YOU. This is fantastic!
There’s also an open source emulator for Quest (and the Go? If it still runs there?) too that is, in my opinion, the single best way to play VB games now.
https://sidequestvr.com/app/125/virtualboygo
You still get the 3d effect of the original games too, still in a headset, etc. but you get all the advantages of a modern headset. The sense of scale (things didnt look as big in an actual VB, hard to explain), you can move your head around, much nicer screens. Just, everything about it is better.
I’ve always defended the VB. I dont think it was as bad as people act like it was, for the time it was very cool. It just never got the chance to really develop and was a little ahead of its time. Hell, I think even the weird only red LED rapidly shifting and bouncing off a mirror display tech is actually cool and should be experienced in person at least once, it doesn’t feel like other display techs.
And Wario Land is legitimately a great game worth playing today. A bunch of other games are really fun, too.
The problem is though that it’s an open source project maintained by one guy. At one point the emulator just stopped working on a new Quest firmware. I messaged him about it, he got it working again and posted an update, but now on Quest 3 for some reason it’s too dark. It could really use a little support to keep it going, enough that if I ever get the time I’m going to look into it.
Totally recommend it, though.
PER-FECT
seriously? just a few weeks ago i was looking for an emulator like this, and the best i could find ran horribly and had poor compatibility. and now this exists all of a sudden?
…well, when the gods send you a gift, you click on the download link.
Eh, Virtual Boy games sucked major ass anyway.