The Nintendo 3DS is already past its prime, both in life-cycle and its homebrew scene, and while its homebrew scene still continues to be strong to this day, many people have moved away from it and are instead focusing on the Nintendo Switch.

While the 3DS did get its fair share of emulators from previous Nintendo consoles, even up to a Nintendo 64 emulator with DaedalusX64-3DS, one specific console from Nintendo's history of failures is the Virtual Boy, and given the 3DS feature of playing games in actual 3D, it was a lost opportunity for Nintendo not to capitalize on the success of the 3DS' 3D technology to revive the Virtual Boy in its full 3D glory, without the headaches of the actual red-lenses visor that the original Virtual Boy was known for.

Despite the Virtual Boy's failure, some people are still interested in it, and 10 years ago, a user by the name of mrdanielps worked on an initial Virtual Boy for the 3DS, titled r3Ddragon. The project itself was more of a WIP, and it never got developed further, until today.

@Floogle continued the work that mrdanielps originally made for r3Ddragon, now titled "Red Viper", and has managed to make the entire 22 games library of the Virtual Boy at full speed, and not only that, but Floogle also added the feature to play the games in proper 3D, utilizing the 3DS' 3D upper screen for this achievement, effectively making the Virtual Boy revival that many wanted since the inception of the 3DS and its homebrew scene.

​

The full features of the Red Viper emulator for 3DS include the following:

• All officially licensed games are playable at full speed, even on the original 3DS
• 3D support
• Game saves are supported
• Map either the A/B buttons or the right D-Pad to the face buttons, with the other being on the touch screen
• New 3DS C-Stick is also supported
• Configurable face button mapping
• Configurable color filter

Floogle also lists possible future additions to the emulator:

• Support for PCM samples
• Savestates
• Homebrew support
• Circle Pad Pro support
• Button controls for menu
• More versatile color filter
• A forwarder to allow loading a specific game from the home menu

Those interested in trying out the emulator and discussing it can do so at the GBATemp's release thread for the project by Floogle.

Red Viper Release Thread on GBATemp
Red Viper GitHub Repository

 

[Xdqwerty]

People can now play virtual boy wario land the intended way without having a headache and neck pain

 

[ShadowOne333]

Not exactly true as myself and others have had numerous crashes with 3d Tetris which makes it pretty much unplayable but apart from that every other game seems to work good.


(edit) Seems like red alarm also crashes.

https://gbatemp.net/threads/red-viper-virtual-boy-emulator.649360/#post-10365590

Ah yeah I did read about 3D Tetris crashing, but 1-2 games out of the entire library is really good already.
I'm sure the dev will quickly fix the problems with both Red Alarm and 3D Tetris.

 

[BaamAlex]

Been peacefully holding out on A9LH Luma 6.6 for years lol.

That's what I call perseverance xD

 

[G25900]

This is something I've been randomly checking for for years now, just to see if anyone managed to get an emulator running with the actual 3D, so glad someone finally did it. Definitely going to load the entire library on my 3ds later.

 

[Tomtani1]

I bought a Virtual Boy along with a few games when Toy R Us had them on clearance around 1997. Unfortunately, I sold it soon after that. I am very excited to try Red Viper on my New 3DS XL. Thank you for the emulator.

 

[stanleyopar2000]

Bro this is almost just as good as playing Virtual boy in VR

 

[Darksabre72]

Wow, it seems so obvious after the fact that 3DS is the perfect system for emulating Virtual Boy. Never crossed my mind before, but then again, I've never spent any notable amount of time thinking about Virtual Boy emulation. Neither has Nintendo apparently.

yeah kinda shocked that nintendo never tried, but i guess they wonder if anyone wanted any virtual boy games

 

[Another World]

This is truly cool. I love what comes from the different homebrew scenes.

Cheers,
-Another World

 

[impeeza]

Why to create this thread if another thread already existed?

https://gbatemp.net/threads/red-viper-virtual-boy-emulator.649360/

Will not be better to merge booth?

 

[ShadowOne333]

Why to create this thread if another thread already existed?

https://gbatemp.net/threads/red-viper-virtual-boy-emulator.649360/

Will not be better to merge booth?

I did discuss doing that, but the decision was made to open up this as a news discussion thread, while the one made by F;oogle for actual feedback, suggestions and other stuff.

 

[impeeza]

Good reason to blow the dust off my N3DSXL

Undusted and New batter shutt on!

Post automatically merged: Feb 27, 2024

and just «buy» 31 VB games!!

 

[Jmdaemon]

This sounds amazing, hope I try it one day. I keep my 3dsxl in good shape but seldom used. I pre loaded lots of great games on it so if I need to call upon it, its ready. I always loved the 3d screen on it, most certainly because I started on the 3dsxl and never had to put up with the original junky one.

 

[HarveyHouston]

May the 3DS never die.

 

[impeeza]

This sounds amazing, hope I try it one day. I keep my 3dsxl in good shape but seldom used. I pre loaded lots of great games on it so if I need to call upon it, its ready. I always loved the 3d screen on it, most certainly because I started on the 3dsxl and never had to put up with the original junky one.

You will no be disappointed, the quality of graphics are amazing.

 

[Vague Rant]

Played a good amount of Wario Land and a bit of Mario Clash today. Any other strong recs?

I'd say of the 22 official games, it's something like:

Must play:

• Virtual Boy Wario Land (multi-layer platformer, the original Mario Wonder)

Worth playing:

• Mario Clash (original Mario Bros. spinoff)
• Jack Bros. (Shin Megami Tensei action game spinoff)
• Red Alarm (Star Fox-ish shooter, the most technically impressive game)
• Vertical Force (multi-layer Star Soldier spinoff shmup)

Decent:

• 3-D Tetris (not really "Tetris", but pieces drop down a 3D well instead of traditional 2D)
• Galactic Pinball (all right pinball game, not really enhanced much by being in 3D)
• Mario's Tennis (fun novelty, the start of the Mario sports franchise)

Passable:

• Golf (it's golf)
• Virtual Bowling (it's bowling; "Don't you guys have Wiis?")

Pointless:

• Nester's Funky Bowling (it's bowling, again; how are 10% of all Virtual Boy games bowling sims? Virtual Bowling is better)
• Panic Bomber (just regular 2D Panic Bomber)
• Space Invaders Virtual Collection (just regular 2D Space Invaders; yeah there's a 3D mode but it doesn't do anything)
• V-Tetris (just regular 2D Tetris)

I don't know:

• Innsmouth no Yakata (first-person dungeon-crawling twin "stick" horror shooter; translation patch)
• Space Squash (it's squash ... in space; I don't get the appeal but some people like it--translation patch)
• Teleroboxer (robot boxing, quasi-Punch-Out!! style; people have tried to convince me this game isn't terrible and maybe they're right)
• Virtual Fishing (it's fishing)
• Waterworld (based on the Kevin Costner movie; the music is legitimately fantastic but the game I never clicked with)

Bad:

• SD Gundam Dimension War (mediocre Japan-only tactical RPG, there's a translation patch at least)
• Virtual Lab (just regular 2D intestinal distress simulator)
• Virtual League Baseball (it's baseball)

Honorable mentions:

Ignoring homebrew for now since it doesn't have great compatibility with Red Viper, the other games worth mentioning are the two leaked commercial games.​

• Bound High (really good top-down bouncing ball ... thing, play this)
• NikoChan Battle aka Faceball (very unfinished port of this first-person shooter; even the finished versions on other platforms aren't that fun, probably don't bother)

 

[impeeza]

3-D Tetris (not really "Tetris", but pieces drop down a 3D well instead of traditional 2D)

That game seems a lot like blockout even a little more fun because you can change the perspective!

 

[Vague Rant]

That game seems a lot like blockout even a little more fun because you can change the perspective!

Absolutely, yeah. The fact that Blockout exists at all is why I kept the game down in "Decent", since some people might prefer to play something similar on another platform in color, but 3-D Tetris obviously has the advantage of being in 3D. If Blockout didn't exist, I would have put 3-D Tetris under "Worth playing", it's definitely in the top 1/3 of Virtual Boy games for me.

 

[Naster]

Wario Land completable?

 

[beermonkey]

Read this on the way to work. Now have to wait till I finish tonight to try it... Can't wait.

 

[SDA]

Hell no. I'm not gonna have myself a headache just for THAT. It's still the Virtual Boy after all.