The three first generation Pokémon games are nearlyavailable on the 3DS Virtual Console, and to celebrate just a wee bit we though it might be fun to see if there are any subtle performance or graphical variations between this version and the original cartridges.
Using Pokémon Blue as a benchmark for no reason other than pure convenience, we look at the original cartridge running on a Retron 5 and compare it directly to what we captured from our 3DS unit. Obviously the fact that it's running on a Retron 5 does mean that it's not as faithful a comparison as we would hope, but it still provides the insight we were hoping to produce.
Comments 58
Nintendo's emulation is CRAP. The 3DS does not need HDMI - it's displaying directly onto a low resolution screen meaning it should be SHARPER.
Nintendo apply a 'deflicker' which is basically a real blurry pass over the upscaled image. Why? To piss gamers off. In some sort of twisted sadistic twist of fate for selling games under £30.
interesting...... kind of
That is quite the difference between the two! Make me wish they were also available on Wii U but that would no doubt cause many people to pick up their pitchforks due to the Wii U getting DS and GBA games while the 3DS has missed out aside from the ambassador games.
My biggest gripe with Nintendo's emulation of Gameboy games is that there's no true white on it. The white is a really dull grey colour...
Wow, what a surprise! ...not.
Ah yes all the work GameFreak put into the pokemon vc games is really showing.
Ive never had an issue with an 3ds VC games. I dont really care about color or resolution or anything and frankly, in a way, the blurry, crappy look makes it more retro. Not gonna lie though...when right next to each other like this the 3ds looks preeeetty ghetto. Lol
The blur is obviously to add to the effect ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I'd rather take the pixel to pixel ratio of the original GB screen.
Nintendo never uses accurate emulation for their own efforts, they program them to be "good enough" but ouch, that's just sad.
Just waiting for the people calling Retron5 out for being an emulator when the VC is an emulator too lol.
Strange, injecting a Pokemon Red rom I found on the internet into a VC game via homebrew gives me a way better picture than the official Nintendo version.
Not surprised, Nintendo doesn't put much effort into the virtual console when it comes to being accurate.
I never liked some of the official Nintendo emulators. Sometimes the colors are wrong, other look like a pixelated mess or very blurry. But my biggest complain is why for some reason there is no full screen option.
So it looks just like any other GB game on the VC? I assume you can play in the game's original resolution like the rest too.
Why does this article say that the games are finally out in virtual console when they aren't yet?
The 3DS VC looks blurry because it's not set to native resolution which is done by holding Start + Select...
Hold Select when starting the game. It brings the border and the pixels DO NOT scale, so you have the best emulation available with 3D support for the screen depth.
I didn't know about the whole "hold select at start up" thing until I read the comments. Pretty neat stuff. Thanks fella's!
Loving the music and SFX, brings back memories.
I've got the original cartridge so will stick with that as I can always put it inside my Gameboy Player if I want it on full screen.
I wish you could turn off the blur like you can in the Wii u vc...
@Shugo Yes I want the picture full screen and stretched in both 3DS and Wii U. I hate having black bars and the stretched image in unofficial emulators is not bad.
@Shugo I is not that the screens of the 3DS are widescreen. And the widescreen option on the PSP unofficial emulators gives a way better result than whatever Nintendo has done. I still hate black bars.
Nintendo has done a pretty good job building hype for the 20th anniversary.
About the video... WOW... I mean despite the Retron 5 being superior in terms of crispness and sharpness, there's no way in hell I would choose to play this on a TV. Ever. I tried GameBoy and game gear games on the TV through Gamecubes peripherals and releases and that sound coming from large speakers really drills into my brain after awhile. Therefore, I'm going to be extremely happy playing these again how they were meant to be played. So very excited for this Saturday!
@Shugo What I wanted to tell is that I think that it is way better to have a somewhat stretched image to fit the screen of the emulator device (for example the top 3DS screen, the TV, PSP etc.) than have black bars.
@Shugo it's okay Shugo. I know what you're saying and agree with you. Thanks for the hold start info as well.
Wouldn't it make more sense to compare the 3DS to an actual Gameboy?
If you wanted HD you could use an emulator on a PC?
Retron5 doesn't really have an accurate representation of the original game running on original hardware. I just don't understand the choice of using a Retron?
@Farpun I think because the Retron treats the game like a Rom wheres the 3DS its running on a Rom also. Thats just my guess. would love to see a side by side comparison since I didn't own a Pokemon game until Ruby. (too poor as a kid )
@Shugo You're talking to a rock, lol
Holding Start or Select when beginning a VC gameboy game resizes the games to their original aspect ratio eliminating blurriness and adding a 3D border around the game screen of a gameboy. Wow, I never knew this but it is in the manual for the gameboy VC games now that I checked.
Thanks guys for the info. So ready for Pokemon Yellow now.
So does anyone know if you can change the colour of the display like you could in the originals if you played them on a GBA? How when you turn the game on and hold a direction it changed the colours? Please tell me I'm not the only one who's thinking this..
@SepticLemon well I don't recall the actual hardware display being white either. I think what they do in their emulation gives a truer representation for the games original feel and display. At least that's how I remember my GB pocket looking.
I wish Nintendo could figure out emulation.
@SnackBox I don't think so. None of the other Gameboy Games on 3DS have had that feature yet. I believe it's because they are using a Gameboy emulator not a GBA emulator. You do however have the option to play with a white background or one that mimics the old green screen.
@Farpun For convenience. If you already have a CRT and all the old hardware it doesn't make that much sense unless you want to save space. The save states are nice for difficult games though.
@NESguy94 Daaaaaarn it
@SnackBox
I wish. I loved playing with the sepia and brown color scheme. In my mind, that's how a retro game should look.
But jeez Nintendo. Your gameboy vc on 3ds and your n64 vc on wii u both suck. There's no reason they should look as blurry as they do.
And for everyone else who keeps saying just press "start" or whatever, that doesn't give you the same size as the original gameboy. It just gives you the same resolution, but since the 3ds has a much higher resolution, it just means you get a smaller (albeit sharper) screen.
Still buying Red though.
@Utena-mobile i used to use the 'cake colours' scheme as I liked to call it, the one with the weird combination of, pink and purple I think
@SnackBox
lol. that one was always too weird for me. But, hey did you know that if you played Metroid 2 on a gameboy color it would have actual color!
@Utena-mobile Noooo? But I'm going to have to do some searching and buy the original now!
@SnackBox
It's expensive. (T-T )
@Utena-mobile On a 3DSXL if you use start/select to change the aspect ratio it is quite a similar sized screen to the Gameboy Colour.
It's done in order to make it look like it's running on original hardware.
Well, I have a decision to make. I recently acquired the Retron Freak. If the 3DS had the ability to transfer to PokeBank, the system version would be a definite, but I'm not sure.
@Shugo Fat Pikachu even fatter!
It would probably be more accurate to compare 3DS to a Super Game Boy, since that has actual GB hardware. Second choice, Game Boy Player.
Looks fine ether way to me but im not that concerned with graphics. As long as its a good game im happy.
Gameboy: 144p
3DS: 240p
Retron5: 1080p
240/144 = 1.6667
1080/144 = 7.5
/discussion /whine
I've read this thread and I might have missed it but wouldn't it be great if there was some sort of almost secret way to display the game in its original ratios
@SnackBox Holding L and R, then pressing Y gives it a green filter like the original gameboy. I used it on Kirby's Dreamland and it slowed down the game and added ghosting.
It's an 8-bit GameBoy game. It's not like anyone's going to be playing it for the neat graphics anyway.
Why don't you just launch the VC with the native resolution? I play most of the games like that.
@belmont Full screen would cause more streches. Just like GB games played on GBA. I bet people would complain about that feature even more than the standard -ratio kept- full screen we have now as default.
Edit: Whoops! Just read your later comment. I guess you are out of luck if you prefer the full screen you said.
@Utena-mobile The original native resolution looks good on bigger systems, like XL and even N3DS. But I guess no one is going to buy a new system just to play old games on bigger screen xD
I don't care about the comparison but the music is taking me back to my 9 year old self and I love it.
@Shugo @ammarian @Tsuchinoko @ @belmont, Regardless, Belmont is correct. The image is blurry when scaled, this would be understandable if these old titles utilised AA and bilinear filtering and stretched across ultra high resolution but they aren't, a GB game should upscale cleanly, and sharply on a 3DS.
Now, I appreciate that you want to defend Nintendo but the reason why the upscaled image is dark and blurry on a 3DS is because Nintendo's emulator is set to automatically apply a deflicker/bilinear filter pass in full screen mode. This is most telling in the dull, washed out, blurry visuals. We aren't dealing with stretched out JPG files here.
Essentially, the emulator blurs and blends the pixels and colours to soften and hide the low resolution graphics.
This process is applied to ALL of Nintendo's VC games now, hence why all VC titles have dull, faded, washed out colour with blurry output despite running through HDMI on Wii U. This deflicker/bilinear filter is also used in DS mode, hence the annoying, light blurring that can be detected around all the edges.
If you want further proof at Nintendo's inept emulation look at the inability to take advantage of Donkey Kong 64's 16:9 Widescreen (which still works) as Nintendo have forced black borders unless you have a TV that allows for manual scaling.
Sony's PS Vita, like the 3DS runs games in their native resolution, but Vita allows you to turn the deflicker/bilinear filter off allowing sharp pixels, it also allows for all manner of odd ball and custom scaling which never blurs despite some titles having ultra low resolutions.
Pikmin 2 on GCN is a good example on a Nintendo system. In this game on GCN, Nintendo have the option to switch deflicker on/off. The results are startling. Deflicker on is very blurry, soft and washed out but gives the impression of AA being applied. Off provides a pristine, pin sharp image with sharp edges and color.
@KTT
If I was rich I would. Hmmm... maybe I should marry rich.
@OneBagTravel Well, you can have a perfect pixel ratio if you hold select or start when the game boots up. The game shows up with a border of the Game Boy/Color and this works with all GB/GBC VC games.
@Shugo Not playing the Pokemon VC games, but have several other Gameboy VC games on 3DS. And I would've appreciated it if they had included a third option in the emu for an "uneven pixeled" 1.67 upscale. Not saying I'm certain I would've ended up using it, but it would be nice to at least have the option.
Also pre-arranged + custom color-schemes and support for Super Gameboy colors in games that support it would've been nice. Love Donkey Kong with Super Gameboy colors! When hackers can do it with homebrew without full system access, it's strange Nintendo can't manage the same!
Tap here to load 58 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...