The Imaginative and prescient Professional bought its first Digital Boy emulator in an app referred to as VirtualFriend, lastly giving me, an individual with an irrational love for Nintendo’s most short-lived console, an opportunity to play it in immersive 3D as soon as extra. The app can be obtainable for iOS and iPadOS, the place it’s a just about similar expertise, minus the 3D impact.
The primary video games I performed after downloading VirtualFriend have been these I owned as a child: Crimson Alarm, Wario Land, and Mario’s Tennis. I’m happy to say that other than some minor audio glitches in Crimson Alarm, the video games run properly — it’s all simply as I bear in mind it.
VirtualFriend helps Bluetooth controllers and keyboard management on the Imaginative and prescient Professional, in addition to touchscreen buttons in the event you’re enjoying on an iPhone or iPad. Visually, the video games look pretty much as good as a Digital Boy sport can and have somewhat assist from the app, which helps you to customise the console’s two-tone coloration palette. VirtualFriend additionally has an eye fixed adjustment slider that helps alter the picture in the event you discover a specific sport isn’t working for you.
The massive lacking options are controller mapping and the flexibility to avoid wasting your sport at any level utilizing save states. (Developer Adam Gastineau acknowledged the latter in an open situation on the venture’s GitHub web page.)
Nonetheless, VirtualFriend is straightforward to suggest in the event you’re in any respect interested in enjoying Digital Boy video games or, like me, you as soon as owned and cherished the console. It’s free with the choice to tip the developer, doesn’t present advertisements, and based on its App Retailer itemizing, gained’t accumulate your information. It’s simply good, clear, mid-90s VR enjoyable.
