It's amazing! It's here! MiSTer's Saturn dev breaks down his new 3DO core and why it may never be *quite* perfect When I see the words "The 3DO Company," my mind goes to a very specific place: _Battletanx_. The arcadey masterpiece that was 1999 sequel Global Assault probably spent more hours slotted into my teen years N64 than any game this side of Goldeneye or Mario Kart, thanks to a genuinely inventive array of asymmetrical multiplayer modes, tank archetypes and impressive-for-the-time destruction. The second place my mind goes is Army Men: Sarge's Heroes, the shittiest videogame I've played in my entire life (and my best friend in first grade owned E.T.). So, y'know. Win some, lose some. I have no personal affinity with the 3DO itself, an oddball console that the company launched in the early '90s, but by all accounts it falls into the "lose some" category. It only lasted a few years before The 3DO Company shifted to just developing and publishing games for the Nintendo 64, PlayStation and PC. Despite shutting down in 2003 (should've made more Battletanx and fewer Army Men), the company legacy does live on today in a few forms. 3DO originally published pioneering online 3D MMO Meridian 59, which I wrote about last year on PC Gamer because it's one of the oldest videogames in existence still being updated today. It came out in 1996!! Also, more relevant to this newsletter: the 3DO console now has a MiSTer core. Somebody get Trip Hawkins a MiSTer Pi, stat. That's the main story this week, along with a brief follow-up to last issue's long read on Xbox 360 recompilation. That bit of the emulation scene is absolutely on fire right now, so I imagine we'll be dipping back in preeeeetty regularly to cover what's new. Speaking of new, I think most folks who read this newsletter probably jibe with metroidvanias, especially those that lean towards platforming reminiscent of '80s and '90s games. If that's you, I can't recommend Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland enough — I've been absolutely loving it this past week and find it quite a refreshing throwback to simpler games in this style, without the combat gauntlets that define the likes of Silksong and Blasphemous. The hand drawn art is lush, the music sublime; it's just an out-and-out charmer. A really well balanced blend of the new and the old, made by a tiny indie team who could use some love. Little Nemo and the Guardians of Slumberland on SteamExplore a dream world as the iconic Little Nemo, armed with toys, candy, and stuffed animals in this cute & colorful Metroidvania adventure. Experience NES-era platformer gameplay in a vast, non-linear world that has been hand-animated frame-by-frame, as you unlock new abilities to progress.STEAM Also, speaking of the new and the old — check out the next episode of the Video Game History Foundation's podcast, cause I'll be on there talking about **_Read Only Memo_** (just a little bit) and the emulation scene more broadly (a lot bit). In rare snatches of free time I've also been continuing my background mission to play some fan translations this year, so you'll find some evidence of that quest in the Good Pixels section to close out the issue. Dive on in! 💸 __If you enjoy__ _****ROM****_ __, I'd love it if you'd consider__ a small tip__to help me cover my monthly costs. (Follow the link and click 'change amount' to whatever you want).__ * * * ## The Big Two ### 1. MiSTer miracle worker srg320 dishes on the new 3DO core On January 15, 2025, developer Sergiy "srg320" Dvodnenko — best known for the near-miraculous Sega Saturn core for the MiSTer FPGA project — posted a YouTube video titled 3DO FPGA WIP. It was exactly what it said: an early test of whether it was possible to run games designed for Trip Hawkins' CD-ROM console brainchild. Well, not _that_ early. "I started development in October 2023, but I spent most of my time working on Saturn," Dvodnenko said in an interview with **_Read Only Memo_**. A little over a year after posting that YouTube vid, on March 21st of this year, he released the first public build for testing on Github. 'It's Happening' gifs flooded the MiSTer Discord. In total, Dvodnenko said, it took him only about two months of development work to get this initial release up and running when he took breaks from working on the Saturn core. But this wasn't necessarily the hard part. "All the main modules are done," he said. "Now it's time to find and fix any issues. And that usually takes much longer." There's already a community-sourced testing spreadsheet for tracking which games work and which don't from the 3DO's library of some 250 games. When you consider multiple regional releases and revisions for many of them, though, the testing matrix balloons; there are 639 lines on the spreadsheet as of this writing, with more than 400 games marked as "playable" but with caveats like crackling audio or visual flickering. Many might even be finishable, but the core is so young that volunteer testers haven't yet run through them from start to finish. And there's still stuff that won't boot at all: Dvodnenko said he hasn't yet implemented the arcade implementation of the 3DO which was used for a handful of games, and PAL games currently all run with NTSC timings, an inaccuracy that will inevitably cause issues (like that crackly audio). It's already made some noticeable progress in just the last two weeks, though, with a move from only supporting MiSTer setups with dual RAM sticks to now running on single RAM. But right now Dvodnenko isn't sure how close to perfect the final version of the core will end up being. "The core itself is not complex and does not consume a lot of FPGA resources (it currently uses about 55% of the resources)," he said. "The main problem is VRAM emulation. This is likely what prevented other developers from working on the 3DO core. Accurate VRAM emulation requires a certain amount of internal FPGA memory, which it doesn't have. Therefore, unfortunately, the core cannot be accurate on the MiSTer." I asked him to dig into that particular memory problem more, and what it potentially means for games: > "The main issue with VRAM is that it has a buffer the size of a single page (512 words). A single command can transfer data between the buffer and a memory page. This capability is actively used in the console. To ensure this page-copying speed, I placed the VRAM in the FPGA’s internal memory. But the FPGA’s memory is only sufficient for 1/3 of the total VRAM. The remainder had to be placed in DDRAM (in burst mode). > > I implemented the feature of placing this 1/3 'fast' portion of VRAM at different addresses relative to the entire space. Because the most speed-critical parts of VRAM are those where the framebuffers are located. And in some games, these framebuffers do not start from the beginning. This trick provided a slight performance gain and slightly improved the accuracy of VRAM emulation. > > In theory, it could [cause graphical glitches or slowdown]. But it's hard to say for sure at this point. We'll see once all the other issues (not related to VRAM) have been fixed." Dvodnenko said the biggest challenge in adapting the 3DO to the MiSTer has been the console's sprite engine, its most complex component and the one that will need the most work to dial in accuracy. He broke down the work that's gone into it so far for me: > "The Sprite Engine renders most of 2D and 3D graphics. Only FMV does not use it, but instead copies data directly into VRAM (framebuffer memory). Some parts of the Sprite Engine are described in the documentation. But that’s not enough to figure everything out. The sprite engine is closely tied to DMA. So, I connected my homemade logic analyzer to the original 3DO board. > > I wrote a few test programs and captured a lot of data from the buses. This allowed me to understand how DMA works and implement it in the core. By understanding the sequence and timing of the DMA components, I figured out the sequence of the Sprite Engine modules. Unfortunately, some details can’t be clarified, such as the capacity of the various FIFOs that are part of the Sprite Engine. So, absolute accuracy won’t be achievable. Perhaps someday the MADAM and CLIO chips will be reverse-engineered, and we’ll learn more." Inside a 3DO. Image via Sergiy Dvodnenko Dvodnenko is himself still learning some of the intricacies of the 3DO hardware, which will no doubt continue to feed back into the core. But even with access to documentation and a machine to hook up a logic analyzer to, he'll only be able to get so far without someone going the extra mile to decap the 3DO Sprite Engine's chips and fully study them. So far updates to the core have been coming in every few days, so hop into the Discord server if you want to try it out yourself. And if you'd rather wait until it's a little more mature, well, here's a Jeff Gerstmann stream to live vicariously through, instead. * * * ### 2. Two weeks and a whole lot of recomp progress later... Wowee zowee are these things moving fast. Since the deep dive into ReXGlue in the last issue of _**ROM**_ , I feel like new playable ports have been dropping left and right, decompilations have been breaking cover and hitting promising milestones. Rather than the usual lengthy writeup here, I'm just going to drop a pile of links on you from stuff that's either appeared or seem some sort of major update in just the last few weeks. They're not all going to be finished or necessarily even playable — as covered in the ReXGlue issue, a lot of this stuff is still _very_ beta — but you can, if you want, play Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts natively, on your computer, right now. Wonders never cease. GitHub - masterspike52/reNut: Banjo-Kazzoie Nuts and Bolts Recompilation with RexglueBanjo-Kazzoie Nuts and Bolts Recompilation with Rexglue - masterspike52/reNutGitHubmasterspike52The most hardcore Jak & Daxter heads in the world have finished their native PC ports of the entire trilogyAughts excellence.PC GamerTed LitchfieldZelda: Twilight Princess PC port inches closer to release with new showcase video—and modders have already added Linkle into the gameThat’s the most important feature taken care of, then.PC GamerWes FenlonGitHub - mariopartyrd/marioparty4Contribute to mariopartyrd/marioparty4 development by creating an account on GitHub.GitHubmariopartyrdGitHub - MaxDeadBear/Re-CherryContribute to MaxDeadBear/Re-Cherry development by creating an account on GitHub.GitHubMaxDeadBearGitHub - MaxDeadBear/NaughtyBear_ReStuffContribute to MaxDeadBear/NaughtyBear_ReStuff development by creating an account on GitHub.GitHubMaxDeadBear Subscribe to ROM! ## Patching In GBE+ 1.10 adds a year's worth of Game Boy paraphernalia – The great Shonumi, who chronicles all his Game Boy accessory reverse-engineering at Edge of Emulation, released a no-foolin' April 1 update for GBE+ with support for tons of peripherals. Many of these are for the DS rather than the GB (the emulator supports both): the Wave Scanner used in a Mega Man game, the Wantame card scanner, and the unreleased WorkBoy, which would've given the Game Boy a dang keyboard. There are general emulator updates, too. A major release! Dolphin gets Game Boy Player support – Dolphin has supported GBA connectivity for years now for games like Four Swords thanks to its integrated mGBA core. But here's a new one: the GameCube can now emulate the Game Boy Player emulating the Game Boy Advance. The ultimate emulation turducken! Note that this feature is only in the dev branch for the moment, but I'm sure we'll get a nice deep dive into the Game Boy Player support next Progress Report. DuckStation respects your buttons – PS1 emulator DuckStation will now change its fullscreen UI's button icons to Xbox / PlayStation depending on what controller it detects you're using. I think that's swell. ## Core Report **Darius MiSTer core in testing** – In the testing channel in the MiSTer Discord, this core looks like it's damn close to finished, with "4/5 ROM sets fully playable: World, US, Japan rev1, Extra Version." There's one noted graphics glitch and one noted audio issue, but otherwise the Taito shmup seems near finished. 1983 maze shooter Cavelon joins the MiSTer – Not many 43-year-old games are on Steam, but this one happens to be! "Originally released in 1983 in arcades, and the following year on home computers, this classic maze shooter saw players take on the role of Arthur as he ascends to the top of Castle Cavelon to save Guinivere from an evil wizard!" reads the description. MiSTer contributor Macro added support for the game to the Scramble arcade core. **Unstable SNES core gets a pile of fixes** – There are multiple patches affecting memory and timing and a few others I don't understand, but... progress is progress? ## Translation Station Oh no? No, Yu-No – A foundational PC-98 adventure game from ELF, this translation hack of Yu-No follows just a few months behind a similar project for Shizuku, which came out the same year (1996). And yes, both are adult games, so download only if you're appropriately, uh, horny. This release actually transplants an existing English fan translation by TLWiki, made for the Windows re-release of Yu-No, into the original PC-98 version. You just can't beat that PC-98 pixel art, man. Sakura Wars 2, spiffed up – The translation of beloved Sega tactics RPG/visual novel/adventure came out last year, and you can read about all the work that went into it in a prior issue of ROM! A year later, this 1.10 update isn't anything radical; it fixes up some typos and other script errors, and also translates some remaining menu graphics that had been left in Japanese. If this is still on your to-play pile, make sure to grab the latest version before you play. Sakura Wars 2 is 28 years old this month. A Progenitor update – Much like Sakura Wars 2, this is a translation update for a game previously featured in ROM. This one's an older PC-98 adventure. "Thank you to everyone who's played this translation so far, I'm genuinely happy to have seen it well received on YouTube and social media," says hacker/'lator BNK. "I've now translated the remaining text, though I still lack context for some of the scenarios. But I've done my best based on the characters / profile pictures of the speakers involved and the dialogue itself, so hopefully none of them are out of place." There's a nice story behind this first-time translator being inspired by a retrospective write-up in an RPG-focused newsletter. Warms the heart! Finally, here's an interview on Sega Saturn, Shiro about a new translation of **Fantastic Pinball**. Sign and prepare yourself for some (tempered, but still a bummer) AI mentions. Patch Translates Kyuutenkai/Fantastic Pinball into EnglishA hacker new to the Saturn scene released a patch Tuesday that translates Kyuutenkai, also known as Fantastic Pinball, into English. ShivaSaturn posted a thread on SegaXtreme talking about their ne…SEGA SATURN, SHIRO!Danthrax ## Good pixels And finally, I'll leave you with 1998's b.l.u.e. Legend of Water, as translated by Hilltop Works. Stay cool. 💽 ## Sign up for Read Only Memo Videogame emulation news and exclusive interviews, from the aesthetics of razor sharp scanlines to the wild technical challenges of making yesterday's games run on tomorrow's hardware. Heck, it's free Email sent! 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Plus: Catching up with a spring blossom's worth of recompilation progress in just the last 2 weeks.

Interview: How ReXGlue is bringing the Xbox 360 into recompilation era Hello hello hello! In this week-late-but-worth-the-wait edition of **_ROM_** , I'm back to my old hijinks with a meaty interview for one of the most exciting open source projects on the scene right now: ReXGlue, the Xbox 360 recompilation tool. You may have seen some videos of early days PC ports for 360 games floating around in the last couple months. Those are indeed thanks to ReXGlue, and I've got a whole buncha words from the toolkit's creator to get you up to speed on how it works and what it's currently capable of. No, you can't properly play Lost Oddysey on your PC just yet, but are you going to be able to at some point? _Hell yeah._ One point of confusion about ReXGlue I've seen floating around is whether it's essentially "just" emulation because a good chunk of its codebase is based on the Xbox 360 emulator Xenia. I bet you'd be able to guess that the real answer is a whole lot more complex than that assumption. Over in the world of hardware emulation, I've had just a little bit of free time in the last week to dedicate to the beta of Taki Udon's "Console Mode" UI for the MiSTer, testing it out on the SuperStation One. The software isn't available for everyone to use yet, and there are still some rough edges as you'd anticipate from a beta. But expect me to be writing impressions of it as soon as it's kosher to do so. That's going to do it for a speedy intro this week, as I've got a date with the excellent Shadow of the Ninja - Reborn to get to. If you see me wincing next time I sit down in public, assume it's because my ass is still sore from this game mercilessly kicking it. 💸 __If you enjoy__ _****ROM****_ __, I'd love it if you'd consider__ a small tip__to help me cover my monthly costs. (Follow the link and click 'change amount' to whatever you want).__ * * * ## The Big Two ### 1. Getting into the sticky details with ReXGlue creator Tom Last year, something caught the eye of programmer Tom, a longtime Xbox 360 fan: Sonic Unleashed Recompiled. The blue hedgehog going faster on PC than he ever had in the game's original console version sparked his interest in static recompilation, a promising technique also being used with N64 Recompiled to translate game code from its original platform to run natively on the PC. As impressive as the Unleashed project was, he could tell that much of the work that went into it was tailored to that specific game. What if he could go bigger? "Around that time, someone reached out to me about a community working on the Fable 2 Recomp," says Tom. "That's where I came into contact with a great group of people who shared similar goals and aspirations. Loreaxe (Ryan Fisher) was the owner of that Discord server and became my biggest supporter during the early days of getting the project off the ground. "I was experimenting with how we could build something that provides the foundational pieces for an emulated backend while also giving developers the ability to implement native rendering, audio, and other subsystems. That is really where static recompilation shines." That's how ReXGlue was born. In the few months since its reveal, a host of recompilation ports have popped up in early development using the tools that Tom and other contributors have been working on. It's a list that, unsurprisingly, contains quite a few games that never made it off the Xbox 360 as well as some other favorites: * Blue Dragon * Lost Odyssey * Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts * Ninja Gaiden 2 * Halo 3's beta * Crackdown 2 * Viva Pinata While Tom keeps a fairly low profile, he says he's been dipping into the Xbox 360 emulation and modding scene for essentially as long as it's been around. He did some modding for Source Engine games back in the day, but his professional background in systems & platform engineering gave him the right experience to build a bigger project like ReXGlue. As the Github page cautions, the proejct remains "in early development" and it's not yet time to get psyched about playing pristine, perfect PC ports of the games above. But what ReXGlue's current state _does_ give us is a great opportunity for insight into how recompilation works for a platform as complex as the Xbox 360. Tom makes no secret that ReXGlue is heavily based on the work of the Xbox 360 emulator Xenia, Unleashed Recompiled, as well as XenonRecomp, a tool for converting the 360 game code to native C++. But getting a game running on PC is hardly as simple as slapping those three things together and calling it a day. "As the project matured, we made the decision to adopt Xenia's codebase wholesale and replace its JIT backend with AOT (ahead-of-time) mechanics, similar in concept to what parts of the Unleashed Recomp did, but packaged as a consumable and extensible SDK," he says. "That distinction matters: ReXGlue is not meant solely as an emulator. It's a platform. Static recompilation opens the door for things that are extremely difficult or outright impossible to achieve in the realm of JIT emulation. Things like deep modding support, native subsystem replacements, and platform-specific optimizations that just aren't feasible when you're translating instructions on the fly." I asked Tom for a breakdown of how ReXGlue's approach differs from N64 Recompiled, given the dramatically more complex console hardware. "The hardware is very different, but the core concept of static recompilation remains the same and that's really the beauty of it," he says. "Static recompilation is universally applicable because the fundamental idea maps directly to how any CPU processes instructions: you're taking the original machine code, analyzing it, and producing equivalent code for a different target architecture. The specifics of the instruction set change, but the methodology doesn't. "Where it really shines is in what comes after the translation. Once you have native code for the host platform, you get all the benefits of modern compiler optimizations that the original hardware never had access to. The result is code that can run not just correctly, but often more efficiently than the original." Indeed, you can see that even in the very early versions of ReBlue, the Blue Dragon recompilation Tom is working on himself. He calls it "the pilot title for most of my mad scientist experiments," like getting multi-disc games to work seamlessly. Even in nascent form the framerate is already much better than it is on console, echoing the performance advantage inherent to running code for these decades-old games natively on PC. The fact that ReXGlue uses pieces of the Xenia emulator, though, can be hard to understand for those of us who aren't wizened programmers. Is this recompilation or emulation? What's the point of all this work if an emulator already exists? Those questions are the crux of what makes ReXGlue special, and the nuance is in what it can do _right now_ vs. what it will eventually be capable of. Tom explains in detail: > "That's a question I see come up a lot, and I'll be honest, it's a frustrating one because it usually comes from people who haven't looked at what we've actually built. The short answer is: yes, it is absolutely a recompilation. The game's CPU code, every PowerPC instruction in the original binary, is converted to native C++ ahead of time through our codegen pipeline and compiled with Clang. There is no JIT. There is no instruction interpretation at runtime. When the game runs, it is executing native host code that was produced offline by the recompiler. That is static recompilation by definition. > > The confusion comes from the GPU side, and I understand why. Right now, we use Xenia's Xenos GPU backend for graphics. But the GPU is not the game. The game logic, the physics, the AI, the scripting, the kernel interactions, all of that is statically recompiled native code. The GPU backend is a rendering service that the recompiled code talks to, the same way a PC game talks to DirectX or Vulkan. Nobody would say a PC port "isn't real" because it uses a graphics API. The GPU backend is a subsystem, and it's one we fully intend to replace with native rendering over time. In fact, the entire graphics system is an abstract interface in the SDK. It's injected at build time, not baked into the recompiled output. That's by design. > > What people also tend to miss is that emulation and recompilation are not opposite ends of a spectrum with a clean line between them. With hardware as complex as the Xbox 360, you need to provide a compatible environment for the recompiled code to run in. That means memory layout, kernel objects, threading, filesystem access. Those are real systems that need to exist regardless of whether the CPU code is JIT-compiled or statically recompiled. We inherited Xenia's kernel layer and have heavily modified it to work with our execution model, but the fact that some of that infrastructure has roots in an emulator doesn't make the recompilation any less real. It means we were smart about what we built from scratch and what we adapted. > > The difference in execution model is significant and measurable. In Xenia, when a thread executes, the JIT translates PPC instructions on the fly, manages a code cache, and makes runtime optimization decisions. In ReXGlue, the function dispatch table is populated once at startup with native function pointers. When a thread needs to execute a guest function, it looks up the address, gets a C++ function pointer, and calls it directly. No translation, no cache, no interpretation. The recompiled code can be stepped through in a standard debugger, profiled with standard tools, and optimized by the full Clang optimization pipeline. That is a fundamentally different execution model from JIT emulation, and the results speak for themselves." As ReXGlue processes, it'll eventually come to include native rendering, audio, and input support. Once it's replaced the GPU emulation from Xenia, games will be able to run even faster on PC — but that's a big job still to come. The Xbox 360's hundreds of games used its GPU in different ways, which means that for the forseeable future each individual port project will be figuring out how _that_ game did things and feed that understanding back into the ReXGlue SDK. Tom has already been doing that with his work on Blue Dragon. "Everyone tries things out and reports back with improvements or things that need to be fixed," he says. "In my experience, that feedback loop is the best way to keep experimental research projects like this alive and moving forward. Experimentation drives innovation." ReXGlue is open to anyone interested in getting involved, with its own Discord server for organizing. Like N64 Recompiled, ReXGlue doesn't exist just to make it possible to develop PC ports of these games, but to make them better; to make them accessible playgrounds in ways they weren't before, even if _really_ dedicated modders were able to hack their consoles and mess around with games 15 years ago. "The goal has always been to make this a platform that others can build on, not just a black box that runs a game," Tom says. Halo 3 via Twister on ReXGlue Discord So, the big question: When will we be able to play Blue Dragon, or Nuts & Bolts, or any of these other recomps? Tom knows better than to guess at a date. "I honestly don't have a timeline. For Blue Dragon specifically, it needs to be at a place where I can say it is genuinely worthy of being put in front of people. That's a high bar, and I know it's a subjective one. I hold my own work to a strict standard. Getting a title to boot is a real accomplishment, and the effort involved should not be understated, especially for people who have limited exposure to systems-level programming. But booting is a starting point, not a finished project. There is a long distance between 'it runs' and 'this is something people should play.' I want the projects that come out of ReXGlue to represent what the SDK is actually capable of, not just that it technically works. When something is ready to be released, it should demonstrate real quality: clean implementations, thoughtful use of the SDK, and genuine progress beyond initial boot. That is the standard I hold Blue Dragon to, and it is the standard I encourage everyone in the community to hold their own projects to as well." 💽 * * * ### 2. N64 Recomps get an all-in-one launcher Fortuitous timing, giving we're talking all about recompilations this issue! As more and more of these projects arrive, keeping tabs on each one will either mean a cluttered desktop of icons, manually adding each to your Steam library, or... using a dedicated launcher! N64RecompLauncher, currently v1.56, has actually been around since last August, but a bevy of updates since then have seemingly gotten it into pretty good shape. It currently runs on Windows and Linux, and I got it installed and cruising in just a couple minutes. It's got a built-in updater and a bunch of UI options, so you can choose a layout more suited to a big library, a desktop monitor, or a more cramped Steam Deck screen. Installing each recomp takes only a second or two, because this is really just an organizer for those projects which each have their own launcher and require providing your own copy of the game ROM before they can be played. But it's definitely convenient. My favorite option in the settings menu is "Show Experimental Games," which is off by default; this prevents a load of early, incomplete recomps from cluttering up the interface if you just want to play the ports that have stable releases or are actually finished. But tick that box and you can see a bunch of in-the-works projects like Mega Man 64 and Chameleon Twist, playable (at least somewhat) on your computer! There's also another switch for "custom games" which are not specifically recompilations, but other ports of console games based on decompilations, like the ones I've been keeping track of on my Decompilation projects and N64 Recompiled PC ports list. RexGlue's Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Legend of Dragoon: Severed Chains, Perfect Dark, Link's Awakening DX HD, and more can be found within. Some of the classifications might be a bit wonky — Nuts & Bolts is listed as stable, for example, but that's only because the Github project's _launcher_ is billed as 1.0, while the underlying recompilation tools for the Xbox 360 are still very much in development as the interview above covers. That's not going to be anywhere close to a pristine experience. But the option to have all of these ports organized in one place with easy updating is a big win, particularly if, like me, you want to eventually try them all. For native PC games we used to groan every time Steam had to launch another launcher, but in this case I think it's a welcome convenience. Subscribe to ROM! * * * ## Patching In Azahar 2125 brings the noise, and an offical Libretro core – For Retroarch folks, the premiere 3DS emulator is now available as a core across Windows, Linux, Mac, Android and iOS, but that's just the tippy top of the iceberg for this update. It also includes a disk shader cache for Vulkan to avoid shader recompilation; CPU usage improvements when using the Artic Base streaming app; restored texture filtering support; new video scaling options; and loads of platform-specific fixes and additions. Android users can now automap controls as on desktop, for example, while on desktop controllers with touchpads like the DualSense can be used to control the emulated 3DS touchscreen. Neat! ShadPS4 v0.15 does stuff, sets the stage for Bloodborne netplay**** – The Bloodboo—er, PS4 emulator hit a new major version number, though none of its listed improvements like "Prevent protects during unmaps" or "Threads: initialize TLS on thread creation" immediately mean much to me. The release notes also mention bigger improvements to come in the next release, and over on YouTube developer George Moralis posted a taste: online play working in Bloodborne. I'm guessing there will be some problems or limitations for quite some time to come, but it's tantalizing nonetheless. PPSSPP continues to polish, including savestate-undoing – The PSP emulator's big recent release is up to .3 in bugfix and polish patches, including one that fixes a missing prompt to undo a savestate you've just made, if it was a terrible mistake. A handy feature! You can also now apply game-specific settings to homebrew, and DualSense Edge controllers work. RPCS3 lets you add games to Steam from within the emulator – Quite a cool quality-of-life feature here, the PS3 emulator now includes a right-click menu entry to add a shortcut for any game to your Steam library, so you can boot 'em right up like any other PC games. Seems quite nice if you're a Big Picture Mode user especially, and to that end RPCS3 also just rolled out a new in-game menu UI that seems a bit more organized. Dang... it's almost like they planned it. > You can now add games to Steam directly from RPCS3! > > Games can be launched directly from Steam, without going through the main RPCS3 UI. pic.twitter.com/3QUAEuGZPR > > — RPCS3 (@rpcs3) March 16, 2026 * * * ## Core Report A hearty helping of MiSTer tweaks – An unusually big roundup from Sorgelig this week with updates for a number of systems. The SNES core gets both rumble and save state support, my nemesis the CD-i gets some fixes, and the MiSTer as a whole get a nice QoL feature: "video_off_hdmi option to power down HDMI on idle timeout." Taito System SJ heads to the front line – Developer Anton Gale reported this past week that an update to the System SJ core for the MiSTer now includes Front Line and The Tin Star, following Sea Fighter Poseidon in February. Get yer '80s action on. * * * ## Translation Station Blaze & Blade Busters bursts into English – I have to say, this is an endearingly uggo PS1 action RPG. Is it a better game than its apparently dogwater predecessor, Blaze & Blade: Eternal Quest? That I cannot tell you! But where that game got a PAL release this one never did, until now, thanks to fan translator Ben128. The multiplayer (with 4-player multitap support!) seems like fairly uncommon for an RPG of the time, and at least according to whoever submitted it to the GOG Dreamlist, it's seen at least some improvements: " Sherlock Holmes for the SG-1000 paints an English portrait of Loretta – Given the number of Sherlock adaptations out there, I would not be surprised if you told me there were literally dozens of games outside the modern Frogwares series that I've never heard of. There's certainly at least one! Sherlock Holmes: Loretta's Portrait was released on Sega's first console (predating the Master System) in 1987, and now it's been translated thanks to Jamiras. "What stuck out to me about Loretta's Portrait was how ambitious it was for an SG-1000 game," writes YouTuber NintendoComplete. "The machine wasn't designed to handle much beyond simple early 80s arcade-style shooters and platformers, and yet here we see a fully explorable city, full-screen background images, window overlays, boatloads of text, and a save system. As crude as the graphics and sound are, I can't help but be impressed by what Sega achieved with this cart." Honestly, rudimentary as it is, there's some pretty nice art in here. * * * ## Good pixels Closing out with a dip into the always delightful #scanlinesunday. Stay sharp! > Did you ever wish your favorite light novel characters could battle it out? This #ScanlineSunday you can in Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax for Playstation 3 🥖 in this 1v1 fighter from French Bread, select one of 12 characters and an assist from 22 titles, with some new and others you know! > > — Sick Combos (@sickcombos.bsky.social) 2026-03-23T04:15:28.899Z > With Bio Hazard/RE's 30th Birthday in its twilight, I thought I'd revisit the original Capcom haunted mansion for this week's #ScanlineSunday. A not-so-Sweet Home in its own Forest Zone and with creepily opening doors… 📺: Toshiba VTW-2187, composite, snapped with an Olympus Camedia C-765 > > — Sasha's Retrobytes 🏳️‍⚧️ (@sharkabytes.bsky.social) 2026-03-22T21:17:40.821Z > SCR$: International Karate+ / ZX Spectrum via MiSTer RGB / Sony WEGA 21" CRT TV #CRT #photography #retrogames #scanlineSunday > > — CRT ART Books (@crtartbooks.bsky.social) 2026-03-08T13:40:41.102Z > Bought a Gameboy player recently, and i've been having SO MUCH fun seeing what all these games look like on a crt! #ScanlineSunday > > — Neimi (@aquaticscent.digital) 2026-03-08T19:03:34.539Z ## Sign up for Read Only Memo Videogame emulation news and exclusive interviews, from the aesthetics of razor sharp scanlines to the wild technical challenges of making yesterday's games run on tomorrow's hardware. Heck, it's free Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

Plus: A launcher for recompilations and a new PS1 fan translation.

Struggling to pull an issue together this week, so I think it's time for a break week -- next ROM will be out on March 29!

DREAMM explores a galaxy of fun as it rescues more LucasArts games from obscurity Hello! A week ago, I posted on Bluesky that the next issue of **_ROM_** would be about the fan translation of Segagaga, based on an interview I conducted with some of the folks who worked on it. As the public's joy at seeing this Dreamcast game translated after decades of failed attempts turned to very much not joy over its use of AI translation tools, I knew a straightforward how-it-got-made story wasn't going to be the right approach. So I started working towards a different sort of story that would talk about how the patch was made, why people reacted the way they did, and how the decision to use those tools manifested in the translation itself. As you can probably tell from the headline, the rest of the newsletter you're reading right now is not about Segagaga. Long story short, time wasn't on my side for this weekend, so a deeper dive into the Segagaga fan translation will have to wait until later in March. Sorry! But hopefully it'll be worth the wait. Given the increasing frequency with which AI is turning up in our day-to-day lives and sparking debates about quality and accuracy and morality and environmentalism and all that, I don't want to rush through the process of looking at the highest profile game fan work to use it so far. So! This week is a bit of a lighter issue, with no big interview or breaking news, just some nice things happening around the emulation space. Enjoy! The horrors will be back soon enough. _(This issue does still actually contain some mild horrors, sorry)._ 💸 __If you enjoy__ _****ROM****_ __, I'd love it if you'd consider__ _****a small tip****_ __to help me cover my monthly costs. (Follow the link and click 'change amount' to whatever you want).__ * * * ## The Big Two ### 1. DREAMM a little DREAMM of Yoda's Challenge Activity Center One of my very favorite emulators, longtime MAME developer Aaron Giles' passion project DREAMM, has hit 4.0! What started out as an emulator specifically focused on the LucasArts SCUMM adventure games has since expanded to support more and more of the company's '80s, '90s and 2000s developed and published PC games, including more obscure ports to systems like the FM Towns. While many of these games it'd be possible to get working through DOSBox or the like, DREAMM makes the process of playing them so much smoother. And that's just the (very good) use case for a Windows PC: DREAMM also supports Linux and Mac, where most of these games were never playable in their day. Also, the UI is really cute. This big release includes support for a bunch of new games from the Lucas Learning series that I know you've been _dying_ to play — but if for some reason you're not all about edutainment, it also now supports a bunch of Star Wars games "for adults" and, also, Willow's here. The full new stuff list: **Six new late-90s Star Wars titles:** * Star Wars: X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter * Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance * Star Wars: Rebellion/Supremacy * Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3D * Star Wars Episode I: Racer * Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace **All eight released Lucas Learning games:** * Star Wars: DroidWorks * Star Wars Episode I: The Gungan Frontier * Star Wars: Yoda's Challenge Activity Center * Star Wars: Pit Droids * Star Wars: Anakin's Speedway * Star Wars: Early Learning Activity Center * Star Wars Math: Jabba's Game Galaxy * Star Wars: Jar Jar's Journey **Two new licensed games:** * Monopoly Star Wars * Willow Some of the big higlights of this release include experimental netplay support, auto-solving copy protection, "more flexible" controller mapping, loading games straight from .7z files, and default audio/video settings that will apply across games. Since the list of supported game has grown significantly, there's also now filtering to control which you see. Aaron's FAQ is incredibly comprehensive in explaining what DREAMM can do and how to configure it, but it's also a remarkably easy to use emulator considering the complexity involved in emulating PC games from the DOS and Windows eras. Most of it is just drag-and-drop. If you want to hear more about DREAMM 4.0, there's a two hour interview with Aaron going live hours after this newsletter arrives in your inbox — you can watch it here! If I can stress one important thing for you, though, it's that DREAMM allows for easy play of two very important games: Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures and Yoda Stories. I mean, just look at this. Can you imagine videogames getting any better? Images via CollectionChamber.blogspot.com * * * ### 2. Get ready for the emulation handheld price increases (thanks AI!) In February, AYN, the Chinese company behind the popular Thor handheld, posted the following on Discord: _"We were informed today by our DRAM and storage supplier that memory prices are expected to continue rising. Unfortunately, the broader storage price surge largely driven by sustained AI-related demand is still impacting the entire industry."_ At the time, AYN said the price of the Thor would likely increase in April, and that "the final increase [would] depend on how much the component costs rise." But it didn't take that long: as of March 8, the Base Pro and Max models increased in price by $10, $30 and $40 respectively. "Based on the information we've received, memory pricing pressure is expected to continue for approximately the next year," AYN posted alongside the new prices. It would be a touch too dramatic to say that the era of cheap emulation handhelds is over — but the era of cheap emulation handhelds with generous helpings of memory probably is. "The storage vendors are killing us," the CEO of Ayaneo apparently said (translated from Chinese) when announcing the $2,000+ Ayaneo Next 2. Ayaneo’s New Handheld Has Eye-Popping Price, Thanks to Memory ShortageThe 128GB model of the Ayaneo Next 2 will retail for a staggering $4,299, which the company blames on the ongoing memory crunch.PCMagMichael Kan On Friday, Valve posted a 2025 year in review that said it "hope[d] to ship" its Steam Machine in 2026, but was having challenges with memory and storage shortages. Valve quickly updated the post to reaffirm that the hardware _will_ ship this year, but it's clear the outlook isn't nearly as rosy as it was when the company first announced this tech just a few months earlier. Official Steam News - Steam News HubCatch up with the latest news and announcements from official Steam news feeds.STEAM The Steam Deck OLED has been flickering in and out of stock in recent weeks, and I expect that's going to continue for the year to come as RAM remains squeezed by production lines focusing on data centers. The Analogue Pocket, meanwhile, blames its price increase not on memory but on tariffs. It's $40 up from its original price. Analogue Pocket Gets Hit With A Price Increase “Due To Recent Tariff Announcements”Dock is back in stock, thoughTime ExtensionDamien McFerran Retroid killed off the 12GB model of the Pocket 6, while bumping up the 8GB model a reasonable $15. We're still wildly spoiled for choice when it comes to powerful portable game systems that can play decades' worth of console games via emulation, and right now price increases of $10 or even $30 aren't going to change that. But there's certainly a possibility that as these shortages stretch on, and the Trump administration erratically shits out new arbitrary tariffs, that the systems will keep getting a bit less affordable and a bit harder to obtain. Some of the smaller players may die off completely if memory supply is hard enough to come by. So if you really, really want one, I'd suggest getting it now. Let's revisit this post in a year and see if I was being overly dramatic... or not nearly dramatic enough! Subscribe to ROM! * * * ## Patching In **Azahar comes to RetroArch** – While it's still a pre-release alpha, once the next version of Azahar is public it will also exist as a libretro core, supporting Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS. Version 2125 has a bunch of other fixes and improvements onboard, too, including a new integer scaling option, improved CPU usage with Artic Base, and solving an issue with shared Vulkan shader cache files. **PPPSSPP v1.2 adds portrait UI, multiplayer "relay" servers and more** – The PSP emulator's first major update in some time delivers the goods, as promised. First up is the multiplayer feature, which seems like quite a big deal if you're playing PSP games online in the year of our dark lord 2026. "A new innovation in the PSP adhoc multiplayer space — they make it far easier to configure, since you no longer have to mess with opening ports in your firewall etc." writes developer Henrik Rydgård. "These are now automatically used for popular servers, and for other servers you can choose whether to try to use them or not." iOS now has screen rotation support, and the portrait UI is custom tailored instead of getting awkwardly squished. A new "smooth" audio feature "greatly reduces glitches when there are slowdowns in games," and the emulator supports the DualShock and DualSense on Windows out of the box. Hit this page for the full notes and game-specific fixes (like Outrun 2006 now being slowdown free!). **PCSX2 gets smarter about fonts** – Fonts! I love fonts, and things to do with them. So I wasn't bored one bit reading these patch notes from a PCSX2 update that improves the emulator's handling of non-latin characters, and saves 25MB of space in the Windows version by not having to ship a font used specifically for emojis. Sometimes emulation isn't about the games at all! * * * ## Core Report **The MiSTer PS1 core studies up on CDs** – Always nice to see the beloved PS1 core get better! Some updates/fixes from creator fpgazumspass and developer kuba-j include: * Track savestate slot status and allow loading only valid states/slots * Crime Crackers – freezes after intro, fixed in-game music * Dave Mirra and Thrasher Presents Skate and Destroy – long stutters during gameplay * MiruMiru PlayStation Vol.1 Disc 2 – broken graphics fixed (also fixes freezes on other MiruMiru demo discs) * Parasite Eve II (NTSC-U) – freeze after Dryfield boss fight fixed * Vigilante 8: 2nd Offense (NTSC-U) – black screen when selecting vehicle fixed **Taki Udon's MiSTer FPGA UI enters beta testing** – The software Taki's been working on for the SuperStation is nearly ready! While it's not publicly available yet, it's currently in beta testing via Discord, which hopefully means a 1.0 release isn't too far off. It's going to be fascinating to see how widespread adoption ends up being as an alternative to the default MiSTer UI. > Console Mode is going into open beta testing for SuperStation/MiSTER Pi owners. If you are interested, head over to Discord. We have a special role and channel for feedback: discord.gg/t3ZywMBvh > > — Taki Udon (@takiudon.bsky.social) 2026-03-03T09:40:56.120Z **Downloader 2.4 ain't faster, but it is easer** – Speaking of software, the MiSTer's Downloader tool is back with a meaty update; it now supports files up to "a few GB" in size, updates to cores won't automatically delete the old ones if the download fails, and most importantly, configuring downloads is getting better with "Drop-in database files" that "Allow users to install new databases by just dropping files onto the SD. No more need to open and edit a file like hackers, just good old drag and drop." * * * ## Translation Station **The Simple 2000 Series' Tairyou Jigoku goes through the looking glass** – This Alice-inspired PS2 horror game, part of the budget Simple Series line, had a Spanish translation a few years back, which has now gotten a "re-working" into English. What does that mean? I'm not exactly sure to be honest. The English looks okay in this playthrough, although you can tell the text spacing hasn't been adjusted for how it displayed Japanese. Still, a cool gaming curio to see in English, as highlighted in this video a couple years ago: **Lupin III: The Sage of Pyramid gets tomb raiding** – As highlighted by the writers at Sega Saturn Shiro, this early 3D action game where you run around a pyramid as gangly Lupin bears a passing resemblance to Tomb Raider. As a lover of all (well, most) things Lupin, I'm happy to see this one in English, though also a bit wary — as Shiro highlights, its hacker/translator uses AI in their process (though they also highlight when using it is a bad idea!). Sticking to the awkward grammar of "Sage of Pyramid" in English is a bit of a red flag though. That's how it was written on the title screen in the Japanese version, but the point of a translation is to adjust such things appropriately in another language, yeah? As you can see from a full playthrough vid, Sage of Pyramid is pretty light on text/dialogue, so at least you're not losing out on _the essence_ of the game if the translation is spotty in places. **Genesis tactics game Vixen 357 is getting an official English release** – Well this is very cool! Retro publisher Shinyuden is putting out a physical edition of this Langrisser-alike, which has some very nice looking anime portraits in it. An official English release of a '90s mecha strategy game in 2026 is a treat. **Valkyria Chronicles 3 translated, but more** – A game people were famously excited to see get a fan translation more than a decade ago, but it wasn't quite finished. This project fully retranslates the game, plus hits some stuff that was never done in the original fan effort, like the DLC and in-game encyclopedia and newspapers. Check out this list for everything the new patch includes! "The translation itself is pretty much entirely by me alone. I guess I should note in 2026 that this is a 'manual' translation, not AIsloption," the creator wrote on Reddit. **A Doraemon adventure-platformer? Sure, why not** – I assume without looking it up that there are approximately one million Doraemon games, as there are one million Doraemon movies, and this one looks to mostly be walking around town talking to people in between platforming stages. But if you dig the android cat, here you go! (Okay I looked it up and there are SO MANY) * * * ## Good pixels And now, for a smattering of amusing screenshots from the Lucas Learning line. Images via Mobygames ## Sign up for Read Only Memo Videogame emulation news and exclusive interviews, from the aesthetics of razor sharp scanlines to the wild technical challenges of making yesterday's games run on tomorrow's hardware. Heck, it's free Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

Plus: AI's squeeze on memory makes cool pocket computers less and less affordable.

After 17 years, Dolphin can finally emulate the Triforce arcade — except this one obscure, ambitious card game Happy Sunday (or day that you're reading this), gamers! It's a Nintendo-heavy issue this week, with a catch up on the latest Switch scene drama (don't panic) and a much more fun look at the work going into bringing to life the short-lived and little-used Triforce arcade system from the early 2000s. Which is actually more a Sega jam than a Nintendo one, but we'll get into all that. It's been an exciting couple weeks for emulation-adjacent stories. Here's one that caught my eye I'm happy to share, after featuring keitai preservation in an earlier issue of **_ROM_**: <i>Rockman EXE: Phantom of Network</i> Gets Unofficial, Native PC PortProtodude I haven't dug into this project enough to be familiar with the details or how it differs from the **decompilation and recompilation projects** I'm keeping track of, but the end result for interested players is about the same: You can now play a good version of this once-lost Mega Man game! That's really cool, especially as keitai emulation is still in its infancy. Here's another fun but small story: **Secret of Mana: Reborn v2.5** is out now, a new version of a long-in-the-works retranslation / romhack. This version is significant, however, because "for the first time, fans can explore two previously unreleased areas that were cut before the game’s initial release. This is your chance to go where no Secret of Mana player has gone in over 30 years!" Meanwhile, speaking of recompilations — this Xbox 360-focused project, partially built off the work that went into Sonic Unleashed Recompiled, just appeared out of the blue: GitHub - rexglue/rexglue-sdk: Xbox 360 Recompilation Runtime and ToolkitXbox 360 Recompilation Runtime and Toolkit. Contribute to rexglue/rexglue-sdk development by creating an account on GitHub.GitHubrexglue While it's still WIP and there are no polish ports as of yet, the developers are already putting it to work with the likes of Blue Dragon. So that's pretty awesome. We might not be _that_ far away from the exclusive gems of the Xbox 360 library being playable on PC with native, fanmade ports. Wonders never cease. 💸 __If you enjoy__ _****ROM****_ __, I'd love it if you'd consider__ _****a small tip****_ __to help me cover my monthly costs. (Follow the link and click 'change amount' to whatever you want).__ * * * ## The Big Two ### 1. After mastering the Triforce, one game still remains out of reach: The Key of Avalon The biggest story in emulation this month has already been told in incredible detail on the Dolphin emulator blog: Rise of the Triforce. It's a fantastic read, delving into Sega's arcade history and its partnership with Nintendo and Namco to build a short-lived arcade platform out of the guts of the GameCube. If you know the platform, it's likely due to one of two games: either F-Zero AX, the arcade equivalent to the home console F-Zero GX, or Mario Kart Arcade GP. In total there were only nine Triforce games, which helps explain why this system hasn't been a high priority emulation target for many years. Rise of the TriforceDuring the rapid technological advancements of the early 1990s, the video game industry was on the cusp of a massive addition - another dimension. With console shenanigans like the Super FX chip giving players a taste of 3D, hype was at an all-time high. But the games released for home consoles were nothing compared to what arcade developers were capable of doing. By employing gigantic budgets and cutting-edge hardware, the arcade gave players a chance to see the future, today. But the future eventually arrived with the launch of the 5th generation of consoles. All of a sudden, the revolutionary 3D hardware features that were once exclusive to arcades were now available in home consoles. Without next-generation hype pushing players into the arcade, powerful but expensive arcade machines were no longer sustainable to develop. The industry adjusted by moving toward more cost effective solutions, with many turning to the inexpensive, already proven 3D-capable hardware available in 5th gen home consoles. Rather than turning around the decline of the arcade, the cheaper hardware may have helped accelerate it. There were fewer unique experiences to pull players into the arcade, and previous hit exclusives were now seeing high quality home console ports that allowed them to be enjoyed without munching quarters. When the 6th generation arrived with the Dreamcast and the PlayStation 2, many arcade stalwarts waved the white flag and started to shift their arcade divisions to home console projects, with mixed success. Sega was among those hit hardest by this era. They produced some of the greatest arcade thrills of the 1990s and enjoyed massive success in the home console market with the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive. But a string of mistakes and miscalculations combined with the slumping arcade industry sent them to the brink of bankruptcy. By 2002, the Dreamcast had been soundly defeated by the launch of the PlayStation 2, and Sega began porting some of their hits to their former rivals’ hardware just to stay afloat. The home market was lost, but the languishing arcade scene presented Sega with an opportunity. They still had legendary arcade development teams, and if Sega could leverage them to produce a wave of arcade hits, they would be in a position to dominate a new era of arcades when most others were changing gears. There was just one problem: Sega didn’t have the resources that they once did. If they were going to do this, they needed some help. And so they did something that would have been considered unthinkable just five years prior. Sega teamed up with Nintendo to develop a GameCube-based arcade platform. Bolstering their ranks was Namco, another coin-op stalwart with tons of arcade veterans. Three companies, one mission: Triforce.Dolphin EmulatorMayImilae "Unfortunately, when it comes to emulation, arcade hardware is a very, very different challenge than emulating a home console," the Dolphin team explain in the blog above. "Even though each game is powered by a Triforce, all of the hardware around it can be unique for each game and even behave differently on different revisions of the same game! An arcade cabinet only needs to be compatible with the specific game inside of it. Because of that, unlike GameCube/Wii emulation, where fixing one game can sometimes fix dozens of others, each individual revision of an arcade game needs to be treated as its own challenge. "Those problems didn't stop people from trying to build Triforce emulation on top of Dolphin in the past, though! Over 17 years ago, Dolphin gained the ability to emulate parts of the Triforce Baseboard. It wasn't enough to boot any Triforce games, but it was a start. However, that was the last time anything Triforce-related hit our mainline builds. Aside from code clean up efforts, the fledgling Baseboard emulation was left untouched until it was removed in the summer of 2016 to avoid misleading users into thinking that mainline Dolphin targeted Triforce hardware. Just because Triforce emulation wasn't progressing in the main builds doesn't mean it wasn't being pursued, though. Instead, efforts were moved to a dedicated Triforce branch, where developers could do whatever they wanted to improve Triforce emulation." To make a long story short (though I highly recommend you go read the long version), that Triforce branch was abandoned after two years of semi-successful work... but there was someone out there who still very much wanted to make it happen. Here's the blog again: "This is the culmination of over a decade of work. While were focused on advancing GameCube and Wii emulation, **crediar** doubled down and continued maintaining his own fork specifically for Triforce emulation. We were aware of this fork, but given the fact that we knew little about how the Triforce worked and had bad memories of the old, hacky Triforce branch, it mostly flew under our radar. "Everything changed mid-2025 when crediar contacted us about potentially making a pull request to get his Triforce emulation code into our official builds... In the end, what won us over was the quality of emulation. The games ran beautifully, and apart from missing touchscreen support for The Key of Avalon, each game was playable. The hacky, messy Triforce emulation we remembered was gone, and something much better had taken its place." Dolphin can now emulate every game released for the Triforce arcade platform — _except for one_ (and its sequel). That one, The Key of Avalon, is a truly strange beast from Sega's studio Hitmaker, with four sit-down arcade cabinets each outfitted with a touchscreen clustered around a big screen which communicated with all of them for multiplayer card game action. Players battled each other with creatures scanned in from decks of cards — between the original version of Avalon, several updates, and Key of Avalon 2, there were about 300 cards to collect, with the typical range of rarities. Here's a video of it from Triforce emulation wizard crediar himself: Wait, so how is there video of it? Well, Key of Avalon is _somewhat_ playable in Dolphin, but not fully. "The Mario Kart GP games share the same networking functions as Key Of Avalon games so it was kinda working already because the functions were already there," crediar told me. Even the basic setup to test Key of Avalon is involved — you need four instances of Dolphin and a game server running simultaneously to simulate the arcade setup. "What I thought to be the hardest part, the cards, turned out easier than I thought as most games have a test menu were you can just test stuff and that makes it simpler to implement things," Crediar said. "But the card stuff was also far from easy to add as we had no device, so it is always guesswork what the game expects." Key of Avalon flyer via Sega Retro The big roadblock for emulating Key of Avalon is the touchscreen that players used to control their cards: "The main problem with this compared to almost any special device like the playing cards or the IC cards there is no test for it in test menu, nor is any command unhandled, the game also shows no errors about it, so we currently have no idea how it works." Crediar has made a frankly ridiculous amount of progress with Key of Avalon without access to an original arcade machine setup _or_ documentation. Reverse-engineering much of the Triforce's esoteric hardware came down to "looking at the game’s assembly [code] and seeing which commands it sends and what responses it expects." "What would be very useful is the manual for the game’s client hardware," Crediar said. "These manuals are extremely detailed. F-Zero AX even includes a full wiring diagram of the system, and every part of the hardware is explained. Having an actual cabinet would also help, but that seems unlikely unless someone randomly comes forward." Fully emulated Key of Avalon feels like more a matter of "when" than if — Crediar told me he's confident it's possible even if no one ever gets ahold of a full cabinet setup. "I made quite a bit of progress in the last few days regarding the touchscreen," he told me Saturday. "We found code that parses a packet related to it. Now we just need to figure out how to trigger the read, or in the worst case we can poke the values in RAM for now." Key of Avalon flyer via Sega Retro Keep an eye on the Dolphin blog for updates — with any luck, a few months from now you may be able to play what I feel fairly confident in calling one of the most obscure, inaccessible collectible card games ever made thanks to emulation. ...would it be crazy to buy some cards? * * * ### 2. Another year, another Nintendo DMCA spree on Switch emulators As reported by Android Authority last week, Nintendo finally turned its gaze back to Switch emulators after many months of relative peace and quiet, "sending DMCA notices to literally every Nintendo Switch emulator and fork that’s currently hosted on GitHub." The complaint targeted both active projects like Eden, Kenji-NX and Citron as well as inactive ones like Sudachi — while a far cry from the dramatic shutdowns of Yuzu and Ryujinx, it's still a bummer and an unpleasant reminder that the DMCA can be used to knock open source projects offline without proof that they're actually infringing on anything. "We believe that the affected projects were targeted for their binary distribution on GitHub," one of the developers of Ryujinx fork Ryubing posted on Discord. "Our projects continue to be licensed under the MIT license and hosted on our GitLab." Several Switch emudevs, including some of Ryubing's, are undaunted by Nintendo's DMCA shotgun blast. "The only thing targeted was our GitHub releases page," Eden's developers explained in a Discord update of their on February 13. "Not the source code, not our Actions workflow, nothing on our self-hosted Git instance, not even our development PR/Master/Nightly builds. ... Our development will continue as always!" Others understandably reacted differently. Citron shut down its Discord, official cite, and presence on both GitHub and Gitlab — though according to a post on Reddit, the real reason for that was scene drama rather than Nintendo's action. _That's_ a thorny brush I have no intention of wading into, but I do expect it means that we'll see yet another fork pop up of Citron's continuation of Yuzu eventually. So yes, it's been a messy old week, but the end result — aside from a reminder that Nintendo will occassionally take aim at what it can under US copyright law — hasn't amounted to much. Switch emulation developers got wise to the risks when they took up the mantle from Yuzu and Ryujinx, and hosting code somewhere other than GitHub prevents this sort of drive by takedown from doing anything but removing a convenient mirror. In other words, another brief scare, a side of scene drama, and then the emulation continuing on as before? Same as it ever was. Subscribe to ROM! * * * ## Patching In **bsnes-netplay supports 5-player multitap play for the true Super Bomberman experience** – Okay, first off, you should go and buy Konami's new Super Bomberman collection if you're a Bomberhead, to show support for the company rounding up seven games in one bundle including their various regional versions, localized versions of Super Bomberman 4/5, and Steam Remote Play together support on PC. As official releases go, this is a rad one. But you know the hobby scene's always got a special trick up its sleeve, and the netplay-specialized fork of bsnes just got updated with multitap support for five players over the internet, opening the door to easy online play in quite a few other games. > Hey everyone! New BSNES-Netplay update is here! After a lot of hard work, multitap support is finally here, meaning netplay sessions now support up to 5 active players! Release link down below. > > — Heat (@heatdev.bsky.social) 2026-02-15T15:01:20.803Z Bomberman's cool and all, but who's up for 5-player SNES Lord of the Rings? **RPCS3 sings its way closer than ever to full compatibility** – In the past, the PS3 emulator could support some, but not all, SingStar games. Why? Because while early ones used the PS3's "cellMic" API, while later ones switched to "direct USB access," RPCS3's Twitter account explained. A new commit allows you to use a standard USB PC mic in the emulator, while another fixes issues with video decoding in some SingStar games. That makes 39 more games playable, leaving just 62 games bootable but not yet playable in RPCS3, most of them for the PlayStation Move. **Yaba Sanshiro 1.19.3 arrives with a new Android UI** – This is a big update for the Saturn emulator, including but not limited to: * "Complete UI overhaul: Modern design following Material Design 3 guidelines * Added standalone Backup Manager * Backup data sharing feature * Optimized button layout for small screen devices" **DREAMM 4.0 is nearly here, with beta builds in testing** – Aaron Giles' LucasArts-focused emulator is close to its first release since October 2024. 4.0 includes a whole ton of new features, but the most attention-grabbing are the additional games it'll support: "All eight released Lucas Learning games, six new late-90s Star Wars titles, two new licensed games: Star Wars Monopoly and Willow." Can't wait! * * * ## Core Report **Taito's Sea Fighter calls Poseidon MiSTer** – Developer Anton Gale has updated the System SJ MiSTer core to support the 1984 sidescroller Sea Fighter Poseidon. Perhaps not a classic, but hey, surf's up. **MiSTer's Update All adds CRT support****** – "It's no secret that running Update All (or Downloader) without extra configuration gives you no output on CRT screens. You could always 'fix' this by tweaking some MiSTer.ini options, but the results were pretty mixed," writes maintainer theypsilon. "Well, that's no longer the case. I've redesigned the UI and menu layouts to adapt to the terminal width, and adjusted many places to avoid overflowing text. It's proper responsive behavior, not a hack." Update All's new v2.5 also includes a PC launcher for arcade systems and better theme support. **The MiSTer's N64 gets a little more turbo** – Over in the MiSTer Discord server, user Corn has uploaded an experimental overclocked version of the N64 core that ekes out even more speed than past efforts, which will mean a few more frames in those notoriously slowdown-prone games. It's a nice counter to the Analogue 3D's out of the box overclocking feature, though as you'd expect from overclocking a system that wasn't built to be overclocked, it's not going to work in every game. Users have reported crashes in Diddy Kong and Beetle Adventure Racing so far. * * * ## Translation Station **Bangai-O explodes with not one, but two new translations** – As featured last issue, the group Roboverse has been working on a fresh translation for the N64 release of Treasure's Bangai-O... and now it's out! But bizarrely, another translation appeared too, just a day later, from solo hacker/translator deadsnare. Hopefully no one involved in either project feels like they've had their thunder snatched — while it's rare to see two translations drop at the same time, comparing them _does_ offer the opportunity to see different approaches to localization. Whichever one you go with, I have a feeling it'll be a big improvement over the official English translation Bangai-O got on the Dreamcast back in the day. Bangai-O translation by deadsnare (first/left) and Roboverse. deadsnare is also currently working on hacking the Saturn version of visual novel Yu-No. **Little Master 2: Knight of Lightning** - A tactics RPG sequel for the original Game Boy, the first of which got a translation back in 2018. Here's an extremely thorough article on it, but if you want the short version, this strategy game's characters include Dracula, a minotaur, and a giant chicken. Good. A much quicker overview of the sequel, below: * * * ## Good pixels Zombies are on the brain with Resident Evil Reqiuem nearly here, so I dug up some screenshots from REmake on the GameCube, captured in Dolphin more than a decade ago. Still a gorgeous game. 💽 ## Sign up for Read Only Memo Videogame emulation news and exclusive interviews, from the aesthetics of razor sharp scanlines to the wild technical challenges of making yesterday's games run on tomorrow's hardware. Heck, it's free Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

Plus: The latest Nintendo Switch emulation DMCA Whac-a-mole.

The follow-up: Taki Udon on the SuperStation Dock, and more Quest 64 Recomp Hey folks, I'm coming at you from a hotel in the midst of a head cold and wedding travel, so this is going to be a bit more of a truncated issue than usual. Luckily my hands are working a bit better than my voice, but I'm still going for the speedrun right now. I've got another big interview planned for the near future, but not much time to assemble it in February, so look forward to this mysterious topic _soonᵀᴹ._ This week, enjoy the last bit of my chat with Taki Udon, this part focused on the SuperStation's dock, and the work that went into getting real-time CD performance working on the MiSTer. Plus, a secondary quickie interview with Rain, the developer behind the recently featured Quest 64 Recomp. Basically this issue is like one of those clip show episodes that's got new material, but it's not _fresh_ fresh, y'know. Since this is on the shorter side, a quick housekeeping reminder: you can follow a list of emulation developers, official profiles and fan translators that I made on Bluesky! Emulation Scene by @wes.readonlymemo.comEmulation & Fan Translation programmers, creators, and news sources. 💽 Maintained by @wes.readonlymemo.com.Bluesky Social I'm also maintaining a page tracking decompilation / recompilation projects, with monthly updates! Decompilation projects and N64 Recompiled PC ports (Jan 2026)A guide to the playable and upcoming retro game decomps and recompilations, updated monthly.Read Only MemoWes Fenlon That'll do it for this intro, let's get to it! 💸 __If you enjoy__ _****ROM****_ __, I'd love it if you'd consider__ _****a small tip****_ __to help me cover my monthly costs. (Follow the link and click 'change amount' to whatever you want).__ * * * ## The Big Two ### 1. Taki Udon dishes out a few more details on the SuperStation Dock _When Taki Udon was getting ready to announce the SuperStation and start taking pre-orders, the SuperDock — which can play games straight from a disc — wasn't part of the plan. We spoke about how the last-minute addition became one of the toughest engineering challenges for the SuperStation, in terms of both hardware and software. Here's that section of the interview, edited for clarity._ **The dock feels like something new and different for FPGA, to me. The fact that you have this dock that's actually able to play PS1 discs and has other stuff attached to it. Walk me through your intentions with the dock and what it's taken to get it to the point it's working effectively.** Even just the December before the launch [in January 2025], it's just the SuperStation. There's no dock. And in my mind, if I did a dock, it'd just be to get more USB, because we only had three USB [ports]. And I maybe wanted to have an internal [solid state] drive. Then people were like 'we want a CD. We want a CD.' I'm thinking about it, and I'm thinking, 'it should definitely be able to read CDs.' CDs are not difficult at all. But if you took the conventional wisdom at the time, people are like 'oh, there's no way you can read CDs on MiSTer, it's not going to work, every CD drive is a little different.' Blah blah blah. If those people worked for me and they were the ones I went to for advice, I would not do the SuperDock, because I would just think that it's impossible. But [they weren't]. So when we sold the SuperStation, I put the dock there for a $5 deposit, and it was a $5 deposit because it was not guaranteed. But if you give me this deposit, I will know if it's worth my time to try to make it work. Then a lot of people paid the $5 deposit, so I felt comfortable sinking an unknown amount of time trying to get it to work. I hired a bunch of engineers to work on that and to work on the UI, which some people also said was impossible to do. The UI started first. I was like, 'it should not be impossible to do a UI on this. It's a computer!' I've released handhelds that are weaker than the processor that's in the MiSTer, and have a UI that's much better, with graphics and everything. 'It can't be done, it can't be done.' Well, we're naive enough to try, I guess. And then we did it. Around the summer we finally got some proof of concepts of being able to read discs. Reading PS1 was possible. It works. Can Sega CD work? Yes it can — it's even easier than PlayStation 1. Performance is amazing. Can it do Sega Saturn? Yes, it's even better than PlayStation 1. Can it do PC CD? Yes! All of these things were way more performant in that early stage than PlayStation 1 was, so no matter what, the myth that it can't read CDs was just a myth. It's a hobbyist project. When people are like 'oh, we want the UI to look good,' yeah, it's easy to _say_ those things, but if you don't have an engineer that's going to actually spend the time to work on it, with no ROI at all, then they're not going to do it unless they're personally invested in it. And [so far] none of them are, because they like the way the UI looks. But there's a majority of people who probably want the UI to be better, and they want to be able to access legacy media without having to buy consoles that are super expensive. Once we had the dock CD working, we just needed to iterate. How can we make the experience better? How can we remove the friction from MiSTer? How can we make this integrated into our main UI? How can we give users an option to never need to use the MiSTer UI at all? How can we auto-boot into our UI? How can we recognize that discs have already been dumped, and should the user load it from the backed up storage because that'll be faster, or should they have the freedom of being able to still boot it from the CD? > Region free PS1 = ❤️ > > Japanese PS1 games are super cheap. pic.twitter.com/r6sQ17Mw6r > > — Taki Udon (@TakiUdon_) January 4, 2026 We got it to the point that the hardware is fully proven. So the $5 deposit changed to the full price of the dock. We opened up the mold for the dock. If I had more money, a lot of things would've been going [into production] at the same time, but there's a lot of risk in this stuff. If I had opened the mold for the dock from the beginning like I did for the SuperStation, I would have to eat that entire dock cost if the dock couldn't work _and_ I'd have to refund the $5 deposit. A refund of the $5 deposit is not a big deal — that's $5 plus maybe 3% extra for refunding the original payment processing fee. But the mold, that's a lot. And paying for people to work on it in the office, that's a huge cost. There's no failure path forward. So we opened the mold for the dock, and it's [now] a month or two behind SuperStation. **What goes into changing a mold before production?** The mold [for SuperStation] has been modified a lot of times to accomodate changes that we've done to the motherboard, but since all of these things were mixing at the same time [throughout the design phase], it was easy. Now if I want to change something for the mold, it's not easy. We have a new revision, which is 1.3. 1.3 has one change where the connector that goes to the dock is a board-to-board PCB connection. So when you have it on top of your motheboard, you just press it down like a Lego brick, and it's connected. Right now, on the ones that we are shipping, there's a flat panel cable that connects to the cartridge connector that we have that connects to the dock, and then the other end of that cable connects to the motherboard. So you always have to connect one cable to the motherboard and one to a secondary PCB, and that secondary PCB connects the motherboard to the SuperDock. As of 1.3, you'll just take a secondary PCB and just put it into place by pushing down. It saves you a lot of steps, and I think it looks much better. But the problem with that is, that requires a mold change, because it doesn't fit fully flush with the connector. Even [three weeks ago] we were playing around with 'how can we make this fit without changing the mold?' > EDM https://t.co/6z10Oz15wx pic.twitter.com/zbl4X0iubb > > — Taki Udon (@TakiUdon_) September 22, 2025 Changes from 1.2.1 to 1.23 were mostly internal, about how we improve the efficiency of assembly. Now, when you assemble the motherboard, you can just drop it right into the pocket that it sits in in the bottom shell. But for 1.2's motherboard, you had to tilt it back, so that the back ports are down and the front of the PCB is pointing up to your face, then you put that side in and the front goes down. Once you put it in there it's locked into place. You can't easily get it out. That motion — I said 'well, if you multiply that by X amount of units, that's a lot of time.' It should really just be 'drop it in and screw it in.' And if the user needs to take it out, it should be easy for them. There's no reason we need to lock it down, so that's not a great design. So we had to modify the mold for the device, which is expensive. * * * ### 2. A quick Quest 64 Recompiled follow-up After featuring the WIP Quest 64 in **_ROM_** a couple issues back, I had a quick chat with developer Rain, who put v0.1 up on Github. "Currently, the port does not correctly support widescreen or higher refresh rates, however surprisingly they do mostly work out of the box. I would like to have the visual bugs completely fixed for both widescreen and higher refresh rates, fix the hackyness of the current controller pak support, and get mod support working before it's an official v1.0," Rain told me. The Github will also only build for Windows currently (Mac and Linux support to come). Rain learned to code primarily to go glitch hunting in Paper Mario. "I only knew MIPS assembly and the scripting language of Paper Mario for awhile, but then two people from the ZeldaRET Discord started up a Paper Mario decomp, which I then contributed to in order to learn C," he said. "From there I created my own decomp projects of Chameleon Twist 1 & 2, as well as Mario Parties 1-3. For Quest 64, Mallos (the original creator of the Quest 64 decomp project) was having issues with the build system in their decomp project so i offered to lend a hand which eventually lead to me contributing a bit to the project as well. Many years later, Wiseguy releases the N64 Recomp program and i was looking at games that I had contributed to decompilations for to try and recomp, and I came across Quest 64. Well I actually got it working in less than a day, but the N64ModernRuntime library didn't have controller pak support so you couldn't save. Sonicdcer who has also created a few recomps mentioned they had a fork that mostly worked for the controller pak, so I used that fork and with one other patch to the game, I had saving working." Rain confirmed that he got the Japanese version of Quest 64, Eltale Monsters, working with N64 Recompiled as well, so that will eventually get a release, too. Rain also wants to release recomps of the Chameleon Twists and those N64 Mario Parties, though the latter require an addition to the N64 Recompiled process first. "There's a lot of similar things for each recomp, but setting up the decomp project (which you need so you can generate an ELF the recomp can parse) and actually mapping out the code is its own specialized process for each game. So working on these recomps definitely helps, but there's always unique hurdles," he said. "I think we are going to write some kind of tutorial/general basis for getting one up and running soon, though I'm not sure how soon that will actually be." Other folks are welcome to contribute to the Quest 64 Recomp, too, if they're enthusiastic about seeing Brian's adventures fully polished up sooner rather than later. Subscribe to ROM! * * * ## Patching In **Citron "Pathfinder" refines Steam Deck UI, integrated mod downloads****** – This "significant milestone" release is truly packed with stuff. There's a new global save directory "making backup and migration significantly easier" and save files are compatible with other emulators. An integrated mod manager includes automatic installation of downloaded mods to correct directories" and has pride of place in the right-click context menu. You can save and share per-game configuration files to prove you have the best BotW settings. "Comprehensive restructuring of all UI elements for Steam Deck compatibility" includes an overhaul to the overlay and a bunch of bug fixes. There's a ton more to dig into in the update, too. **DuckStation gets fullscreen button swapping** – The fullscreen UI in the PlayStation emulator now includes an option to swap your X/O concern/cancel buttons. Important! **Azahar backtracks on .3ds extension, allows it** – "We previously made this change as a clear motion to distance ourselves from the mass piracy that lead to the closure of Yuzu and Citra, however, we have now determined that this change is causing more harm than good," say the developers. "Given that the removal of the .3ds extension was originally an act of project philosophy rather than a technical change, we don't want this decision to overshadow the very real leaps which have been made in Azahar over the last year. Because of this, we have decided that it's for the best of everyone that we revert the change." * * * ## Core Report **Analogue 3D v1.2.0 rolls out fixes** – Analogue's N64 got a patch last week fixing some issues with HDMI CEC as well as the FPGA emulation itself. There's now support for the Switch Online N64 controller. It also got a few new library features, including tracking playtime and a "date added" label for games. A beta "force progressive output" option "removes interlacing and provides superior image quality over de-interlacing by delivering the full original image every frame. This modifies the video core to output the full framebuffer instead of the CRT interlaced image — a feature unavailable on the original system — while keeping video post-processing true to the original." **MAME 0.285 goes to the moon****–** The first MAME release of the year adds what I believe is the first emulation of Nichibutsu's Moon Raker, a 1980 shooter. There's a bit of history in this thread. * * * ## Translation Station **Chobits for PS2 goes English** – There are (surprisingly?) only a couple Chobits games, and this one now has a 1.0, mostly complete translation! Except, womp womp, it's "predominately AI translated with manual edits." Slight frowny face to that fact. Some UI elements are also still in Japanese, but the videos have been subbed in English. **Tales of Phantasia: Cross Edition for PSP gets a comprehensive translation patch** – Tales of Phantasia has long been available in English, first with the SNES fan translation and then with the official GBA release, but not this PSP version! There are also a bunch of tweaks in this patch, including a skit prompt, some balance changes, and quality of life changes like "Curio's Mirror and Scout Orb now carry over in New Game+ if you select the option to carry over items." I love the SNES version of Phantasia, but never played this version. Cool that every edition of the game is now playable in English. **WIP updates! Super Robot Wars 64, The Curse of Ogaeritō, and Moero! Justice Gakuen Translation Project:** Chapu (@chaputranslations.bsky.social)This author has chosen to make their posts visible only to people who are signed in.Bluesky Social > billymonks just released the first iteration of their English translation patch of the "Nekketsu Nikki" mode in the Japanese version of Project Justice (Moero! Justice Gakuen) on the SEGA Dreamcast.https://t.co/dKh41iaezr pic.twitter.com/HkuH4xHSla > > — Derek Pascarella (ateam) (@DerekPascarella) February 4, 2026 * * * ## Good pixels Let's close with some quick Bluesky posts. Click through for the pics! > 📺 Final Fantasy IX // PlayStation // JVC AV-27D201 via component > > — Aidan Moher (@aidanmoher.com) 2026-01-18T06:44:31.817Z > 🕹️ Battle Unit 🎮 Sharp X68000 (via MiSTer) 📺 🟥🟩🟦 Commodore 1084 #️⃣ #ScanlineSunday > > — Jeffrey Mays (@jeffreymays.bsky.social) 2026-02-02T03:24:42.683Z > Assault Suits Valken SNES 2-chip S-Video Sony KV-27V42 #ScanlineSunday > > — Evan Arnett (@evanarnett.bsky.social) 2026-02-02T01:18:17.551Z > Here are a few others I took of the startup. (I'll give you guys a nice pixel-based game next time, I swear!) > > — Chronis (@chronis.bsky.social) 2026-02-01T13:44:49.150Z > We have Samurai Shodown at home this #ScanlineSunday in Golden Axe: The Duel for Sega Saturn 🪓 Generations passed since Gillius Thunderhead defeated Death Adder by using the Golden Axe. Now his descendant is among the many warriors fighting each other to control the Golden Axe in this 2D Fighter > > — Sick Combos (@sickcombos.bsky.social) 2026-01-19T02:58:22.243Z ## Sign up for Read Only Memo Videogame emulation news and exclusive interviews, from the aesthetics of razor sharp scanlines to the wild technical challenges of making yesterday's games run on tomorrow's hardware. Heck, it's free Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.

Two recent topics revisited with a bit more depth.

Releases · HarbourMasters/Ghostship Contribute to HarbourMasters/Ghostship development by creating an account on GitHub.

The Harbour Masters group behind the Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask and Star Fox decomp PC ports just released their next port: Mario 64! Here's Ghostship 1.0: https://github.com/HarbourMasters/Ghostship/releases

Decompilation projects and N64 Recompiled PC ports (Jan 2026) A guide to the playable and upcoming retro game decomps and recompilations, updated monthly.

Building a new permanent page on ROM: a regularly updated list of all the game decompilations & recompilations playable right now. readonlymemo.com/decompilation-projects-a...

Anime pixel art of a red-haired character with a sword

Closing out 2025 with a JRPG treat! You may know fan translator Supper for his work on famous PC Engine CD RPG Tengai Makyou: Ziria. He's back with 1994's Emerald Dragon, a flashy PCE port from Linda³ developer Alfa System. https://stargood.org/trans/emdr.php

Just two days after our interview about DEmul improving support for Sega Hikaru arcade emulation, developer MetalliC has uploaded a new test build adding some useful features:

- Aspect ratio correction
- Rotation
- Window resizing
- Start in fullscreen mode

Dinosaur Planet Recompiled is the perfect game to kick off a new era of N64 archaeology You can now play an unreleased N64 game on your PC at 4K and that rules. Plus: a new Sega Saturn emulator and a Puyo Puyo roguelike!?

Read more about Dinosaur Planet Recompiled in my interview from May: readonlymemo.com/dinosaur-planet-recompil...

The Dinosaur Planet Recomp featured in ROM earlier this year just hit a big milestone release and is now playable start to finish!

- 60 fps support
- Better modding support
- Compatible with the community's Dinomod Enhanced patch […]

Splatterworld, an unreleased Famicom RPG spin-off of the Splatterhouse series, was discovered and dumped just five weeks ago -- and now it has a completed fan translation! 👻 aeongenesis.net/news