ZSNES and SNES9X were released 25 years ago

[Days of Future Piff]

I still remember playing Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy VI, and Earthbound for the first time through emulators.
In more recent years, I discovered Front Mission Gun Hazard, Lufia 2, Terranigma, Wild Guns, Gundam Wing Endless Duel, and tons more piff.

GOAT game system

 

[TripleAgent]

Some of this might have contributed to it but the real reason that those emulators could exist back then was because they were not accurate and used hacks to get the games working. BSNES (now Higan), a cycle accurate SNES emulator, was not able to be run at full speed on most computers until some time after dual core 3ghz CPUs came out. There's no way that 90s CPUs could run an accurate emulator.

Of course. The simplicity still mattered a ton. 64 emulators barely worked with hacks. Emulating, say an Xbox One will take a Herculean effort, or massive increases in CPU power. Unless MS releases the schematics (never), it'll be hacks on hacks on hacks for years.

 

[Responsible Allen Iverson]

I remember it well. Hell, I was on Nesticle before that.. hell I had a Super Magic Drive (look it up) for my SNES that I paid $600 for back in day.

I remember using Nesticle. It used a pair of nuts as its cursor

 

[Zero]

DBZ Hyper Dimension...untranslated

 

[levitate]

Really great programs. Ran smoothly on the shyttiest of computers.

 

[Days of Future Piff]

Looking back, these emulators really show you how deep the SNES library was. You had so many rare games, fan translations and Japan-only piff that a lot of us missed out on, like the Fire Emblem games and Seiken Densetsu 3 for example.
You even have improvement patches for certain games, like the Mario All-stars brick physics fix or the Zero Project for Mega Man X3.

It really puts into perspective how badly Nintendo alienated third party devs in the 64 era. The 64 library was mad shallow compared to the PS1 and SNES. Sure, the N64 first party lineup was still goated, but they missed so many dope games from Konami, Capcom, Enix, and especially Squaresoft.

Squaresoft in the 90s >>>>>>>>

Crazy how ZSNES was the gateway to Chrono Trigger for so many people. Truly one of my goat gaming experiences.

When that Chrono Trigger theme song kicks in
Hearing that joint for the first time had a young highschool breh like