3DS Can Now Play Virtual Boy Games 

Gunpei Yokoi has been vindicated nearly 30 years later, by Nintendo fan modders of all people. RIP

the 3ds grows even stronger

Just did my first playthrough of Jack Bros through this and it's absolutely brilliant, genuinely feels like a native port through this and the 3D effect working so well is astonishing

3:30 This is the calmest I have ever heard a person say "OPEN UP, FBI!"

Nintendo missed a Golden Opportunity to do this this themselves especially on something like the 3DS but maybe they felt it wasn’t worth it. People are actually going to discover how goated Wario Land on Virtual Boy was.

Was lovely putting my hand model expertise to the cause, really glad this neat niche library is getting more accessible!!

1:01 Red Viper is a solo revival/continuation unaffiliated with the original contributors to r3Ddragon tho

I'm colorblind, and I struggle seeing reds as they tend to look very dark and desaturated. When I saw the virtual boy and people complained about being harsh on the eyes, for me it was borderline unusable. So when I saw that you can change the color of the display, it wasn't only cool, but I suddenly felt like the games were finally playable to me. That's an awesome feature that many will think is just neat, but for me and people like me it truly is a game changing accessibility feature! And I think that's really cool

there absolutely needs to be more 3DS homebrew apps with 3D support, hearing that this had 3D support immediately made me pull out my 3DS and start downloading games

Finally, the ability to play Virtual Boy Wario Land on the 3DS! Something that Nintendo should have greenlit ASAP but for some reason didn't!

I really hope this leads to some kind of homebrew second life for the VB now that it's so accessible on a modded 3DS. When you take all the inconvenient hardware out of the equation these games look wonderful on a modern screen, it almost feels like the 3DS was built for these.

This is amazing! I’ve had a 3DS for like 10 years and I always wanted a VB emulator because it seemed perfect for it. Every couple years I would randomly search if one finally came out but it never did, then I’m randomly scrolling my RU-vid feed and see this video! Just installed it and tried out Wario and wow it looks amazing! So crisp the pixels seem like they’re not scaled (maybe resolutions really are that close or the scaling is really good) and the 3d effect is really great, like you said the video doesn’t do it justice. Thanks for posting about this! Also the video is really well done!

Virtual Boy is finally liberated, been wanting to try these games for years and now finally there's a good way to play them, god bless the modding community

The bit you missed about V-Tetris is C-Mode where you are playing on a vertical cylinder that you can rotate with the L and R buttons

Worth it for Jack Brothers alone.

I heard so many people claim the 3DS "couldn't" handle VB emulation, seeing it even work on the original at full speed is a delight. Nintendo really did have a perfect opportunity to make this happen, but just did the cost analysis and decided it wasn't worth it. I'm sure the rights for a few of the games are in legal hell too.

The 3ds can emulate so many things, including certain n64 and ps1 games. This just adds a little more to the massive library

Dude. This was my dream back in the day.

This is one of the most exciting developments in the 3DS homebrew scene, and there have been a lot! Props to mrdanielps and skyfloogle for making this happen.

Changing the color is really neat!

V-Tetris has a mode where you use the shoulder buttons to rotate the playing field, so you can adjust where the blocks fall into what amounts to a super-wide Tetris arena. It's not just standard Tetris! I hope you see this comment and boot it back up!

Ooh, finally. Many years ago, I followed a VB emulator project, that promised a 3DS port, but I lost sight of it. This is great news. Now I can finally play Innsmouth Mansion in 3D! Check that game out, it's great. Only released in Japan as Innsmouth no Yakata, but there's not much Japanese text, so you can easily play it as is. But you don't have to, since there's also an English patch! The game has some randomness to it (not unlike roguelikes, but not quite there. No perma death, for example) and is meant to be played multiple times. You might need to play it for a bit and die a few times before you can finish it :D

Apparently, today is the birthday of the 3DS, as it came out this day in Japan in 2011. It's already tomorrow there now, but if this emulator came out yesterday, then it's still a birthday treat!

Teleroboxer is a lot of fun too. Love the sound when your character gets KOed. Kind of wish this IP would have gotten more love. The virtual boy is really neat. Honestly, that controller maybe my favorite controller

I've been waiting for this!!!

If anyone doesn't know, there's also an emulator for the Oculus Quest that you can sideload with full 3D!

Just downloaded Red Viper this morning, and haven't had a chance to try it yet, but I plan to later on today. Yeah, this was long over due, as I guess the developer community looked at this as a low priority as well, as this should have happened years ago. Not complaining, just pointing out so many other emulators are updated on the regular, and often times when a main person stops, they hand it off to someone else. It was never an issue if the 3DS could handle it, as we had the early proof of concept, but we needed someone taking the time to do it right. Thanks to all those involved from the first version, to the latest one, as this was a "wish list" item I'm sure most fans have had since the VB was discontinued. Once again the community does what NintenDON'T.

I too always wanted Virtual Boy VC so it was a shame it never arrived officially. But maybe it’s finally time for me to try out something that is surprisingly easy to do with my 3DS

This works flawlessly on the 3DS!

So crazy I was just thinking about how the Virtual Boy needs to be revisited for the 3DS, and then suddenly a near perfect VB emulator appears - for the 3DS! That's awesome!

happy to see the 3ds mod scenery growing bigger and bigger still waiting for custom shells and hinges tho

That's so cool! I've been wanting to play TeleroBoxer for ages, it looks SO good, the pixel art is so beautiful.

This guy sounds so much like "Alex from Nintendo Life" that it's boggling my mind.

Can’t believe it finally happened. I’ll have to check this out for myself. Thanks to the clever person who made this possible!

Not that long ago I was trying to use R3Dragon to play 3DS games, and unless I played without sound, it wasn't particularly usable. Now THIS. THIS ROCKS.

Thanks to Jon, I've turned my 3DS into both a GBA and a Virtual Boy in the past week! Big thanks to the 3DS modding community & Jon ❤️🙏

Finally, a reason to play the 3DS

!!! I'd given up hope on this, that's incredible! I actually bought my 3DS almost explicitly for Virtual Boy emulation (which wasn't quite there at the time) and the Sega 3D Archives.

With the current release of March there is now even depth slider support

Now we need to wait for someone to make Nintendo 64 emulator with stereoscopic 3d

Update available, now with working 3D slider!

That custom light blue color scheme kinda screams ZX Spectrum, doesn't it?

OMG I've been waiting for this for years !! Thank you so much for posting this video otherwise I would have missed that news

Galactic Pinball has a Metroid mini game in which you control Samus ship

a top early childhood memory: playing Mario’s Tennis on a Virtual Boy set up outside a KB Toys at the mall. VR was so hot then- there was a “real” sit down VR machine at that mall too

Awesome. I feel there were 2 great missed opportunities on the 3DS. (1)was the lack of Sega Scope 3D games although we did get Maze Hunter 3D which was great and (2) the lack of Virtual Boy games. Thanks for the update.

Just saw your channel & subscribed! 👍 Your 3DS Virtual Boy guide was so nicely put together & OMG it's amazing that the 3DS can do this in 2024!!

Thanks for this! I immediately got out my 3DS XL and installed Red Viper. It's great! On my Oculus/Meta Quest 2, I also sideloaded VirtualBoyGo, a Virtual Boy emulator for VR devices. It's not that hard on the eyes and also has an option to change colours. It's neat to have more ways to play Virtual Boy games, even though I own an actual Virtual Boy.

Jon singlehandedly carrying this channel rn

Back in 2022 after getting my own Meta Quest 2 I played a VB emulator and all the time I was thinking "This is more like the precursor to the 3DS!", because VB games are just 3D games on a projected screen, not the full 360 real-life scale that even 90's VR was. Now it has finally come full circle.

Wow, this is really cool! Thanks for making such a cool video! Gotta try this soon!

Thanks Jon! Trying this out tonight!

Yassss, finally!!! Doing this after work tomorrow! Thank you

This news popped up on my google feed the other day and I got super excited, thank you for covering this. I was actually able to purchase a VB a few years ago for a reasonable amount of money with only one eye working(planning on fixing it in the future). Your right on, the game library may be small but there are definitely quality titles that only ever released for the system. I’m still happy to own one to have physical games and a native experience but I’m definitely loading this on my new 3DS for the expensive games and more comfortable experience

I was literally looking for something like this last week, timing couldn't be more perfect

Jon and the GVG staff, thank you for this. I've often wondered about the VB but I'm not after a used console. I had a New 3DS XL languishing in my collection which I have now homebrew enabled and installed Red Viper. It's fantastic! I love Wario Land games and it's a treat to catch up on this hidden treasure.

Was waiting for your video on this.

This is so helpful! I was super disappointed with red dragon , and I had no idea this much better thing existed!

Thank you so much for this very simple and passionate video. I loved the history explanation before. The tutorial was very easy. I’m very into the wario games and now im absolutely obsessed with the virtual boy warioland. THANK YOU. AWESOME VIDEO

Perfect video. Just did it and exceeds expectations. Wow so cool!

Even in death, the 3DS became stronger than what Nintendo couldn’t possibly imagine (literally loaded this stuff up yesterday too actually, runs like a dream on O3DS)

I never knew virtual boy games looked this good.

Thank you. Downloaded it and I'm honestly blown away by how good the Virtual Boy looks

I've been waiting SO LONG for the development of this to get going, and now it's READY??? I'm so excited!

Having to do a presentation on "The Worst Invention Ever Made" with this very machine as one of our options always made me curious about its library. Now that I've gotten to try it out for a bit, I can say I'm somewhat impressed by how the games look and sound, and even more so by how this emulator runs.

I love stereoscopic 3D! Like a Dragon: The Man Who Erased His Name has unlockable Master System games that you can play with RB 3D glasses. Now I wish there were compilations of 3D games that supported this for Switch! Any other games support 3D RB glasses outside of Sly 3 and this?

Been waiting for this for 10+ years.

I was lucky (yes I said LUCKY) to have a Virtua Boy when I was a kid. I know it’s nothing but a meme now but it really was a mind blowing experience in 1995. The amount of immersion I got playing Red Alarm, moving around that 3D space in 3D, I’ll never forget that moment. This was before Mario 64 or Tomb Raider and decades before the first good commercial VR headsets

It's been sort of a life long dream to test a real Virtual Boy, and emulation in 2D just has always been lacking because of that lost dimension, but this... Oh, I'm getting right on this tomorrow!

Virtual Boy had panels that refreshed at 50Hz, while the 3DS has a 60Hz screen, that means that the framepacing is often not great for games and there's nothing that can be done about that while keeping the game running at the original 50fps speed. For some games, you barely can tell, Wario Land scrolls smoothly since the movement speeds just happen to work fine with 60Hz. No complaints there. But Jack Bros or Galactic Pinball both have some pretty noticeable movement stutter/inconsistent scrolling that's annoying for us who want our buttery smooth motion. So as good as this emulator is, it's a big reason VB can't be perfect on the 3DS sadly. VR with variable refresh panels that can sync down to 50Hz is the only way to do it really (It won't work at 100Hz, you get motion doubling artifacts when the framerate is half the refresh).

I tried this out. This was quite an experience. Thank you.

There are some legitimately fun Virtual Boy games, and they can now reach their full potential.

Looking forward to try this!

A was expecting some videos sbput this when I discovered this this morning. Nice one

NICE. I've been waiting for this!

Wow, this is huge! Great review.

I knew the second this was announced it was eventually gonna be a jon video

This is awesome! I heard about the original version of this emulator but I didn't think it would ever be finished. I will absolutely try out some of these games now that there's a way to play them in a vastly improved way!

Oh finally!!! I’ve been waiting for this for so long!

I always know its a Jon video as soon as i see the title. Love it

I worked my first job, at a game store, when this came out. They set one up in the store for the employees to try and we all hated it. Playing on a 3DS would fix many of the problems though.

I can’t wait to try this out. I’ve never played one and the fact that you don’t need to use the painful red color omg… can’t wait

Wow absolutely astonishing. Finally a modern and appropriate method for Virtual Boy emulation! Thx for the video!

Just wanted to save thank you, this was the push I needed to finally upgrade my 3DS' SD card. I've been meaning to for awhile, but the moment I started playing Wario Land, it was so worth it. The 3D on these games are gorgeous and something I could never imagine coming out in 1995. It really shows if the virtual boy itself was made more comfortable to play, nintendo would've had something revolutionary on their hands. I still hope to get a working virtual boy one day to see the comparison, but this will hold me over while I wait.

Fun fact: the virtual boy has more games than the ps5

OMG, just checked out and it's indeed amazing (in a way a youtube video cannot show), thanks for the heads up!

It works and plays games extremely well. I’m so glad this exists.

I played this last night, and it really is very good. Full speed, with a brilliant use of the 3D of the 3DS. It's so accurate to a real Virtual Boy that you even get the eye strain! (Okay, maybe that's not something most players are nostalgic for, but it _is_ part of the Virtual Boy experience.)

this is really cool to me because the virtual boy console itself and literally all of it’s games are so expensive so i’m definitely planning to do this with my own 3ds soon

Thanks for the heads up!

Subbed Dude I tried this and IT'S AWESOME! This is THE way to experience the lost Virtual Boy console!

This is nice! I could never play these games on the actual unit because I got eye strain after playing for a while. But this I can do! Thanks for the update.

Man, thank you so much for making this video! I always wanted to play the virtual boy, but it would be impossible to get one in my country, and playing with emulators would not be the "real experience". I have a 3DS and man... those games look gorgeous in 3D! My god!!! This must be the best way to play Virtual Boy games in the world! Thanks a lot for sharing! It's like a dream becoming reality. 😄

ive been waiting SO LONG for this.

Thank you for sharing this with us. I’ve dabbled with VB games, but always in 2D. Having a pair of 3DS machines, this is definitely something I’ll be trying out.

I'm convinced now that Doug Browser can't be doing much as he claims to say he let's golden opportunities like this pass him by

The 3D effect with black backgrounds causes a ghosting effect

OHHHH I’m so excited to try this This is amazing I’m so happy this is a thing on 3DS now

Just Downloaded and loving it! Finally i can play Virtual boy without a splitting Headache! You can see so much potential in what this could have been had it succeded. Now i'm gonna finally play VB Warioland!

Lowkey wanna try this out since it seems pretty cool to dabble into