Emulators inside games

Some video games were developed with emulators built into their ROMs. Sometimes they were made to only run one game, or were capable of running other ROMs through hacking.

Arcade

Gradius Origins (Konami)

While this compilation consists mainly of emulated games, a new game, Salamander III, is included. It runs on the same engine as Haunted Castle Revisited from Castlevania Dominus Collection.

The emulated games are Gradius (both Bubble System, stand-alone and Nintendo VS. System versions), Salamander, Life Force (a Japan-only revision), Vulcan Venture (Gradius II: Gofer no Yabou), Gradius III and Salamander 2. Their emulation is powered by m2engage.

LEGO Dimensions (Midway, Williams, and Atari Games)

A physical media-only game themed around the LEGO franchise for 7th and 8th generation consoles, LEGO Dimensions features a Midway-themed world known as Midway Arcade, distributed as a free downloadable content. It enables players to play games from the Midway catalogue purchased by Warner Bros., including games from Williams and Atari Games.

The featured games are 720°, Badlands, Blasteroids, Championship Sprint, Cyberball 2072, Defender, Defender II, Gauntlet, Gauntlet II, Joust, Joust II, Klax, Marble Madness, Paperboy, Rampage, RoadBlasters, Robotron 2084, Spy Hunter, Super Sprint, Timber, Toobin', Vindicators and Xybots. Said emulation of those games were done by Code Mystics, likely using their FOCAL engine.

Unusual from many compilations, references (or even emulations) to Ms. Pac-Man or the Mortal Kombat franchise are not included in the game.

Ninja Gaiden Black (Tecmo)

This Xbox game features an emulation of the Arcade game Ninja Gaiden. In order to unlock, the player needs to collect 50 scarabs, which is the final reward from Muramasa. The Arcade game does not return in its updated versions for other platforms.

The Japanese version of the game is also included, by switching both the text and audio of Ninja Gaiden Black to Japanese.

Shenmue and Shenmue II (Sega)

The first two Shenmue games feature emulation of Sega Arcade games as minigames during Ryo Hazuki's quest, notably, the Super Scaler ones. In the original, Hang-On and Space Harrier are playable; After Burner II and OutRun, alongside the two former games, can be played in Shenmue II. The Arcade games remain playable in subsequent ports of Shenmue II for Xbox, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Steam.

Shenmue III lacks any of the Sega Arcade games, although references to them are scattered as easter eggs during the game.

Game Boy Advance

Naruto Collection

For some reason, these compilations tried to claim they worked by streaming the original cartridge data through a Link Cable in order to play them on a bigger screen. And while it is true that they require the GBA cartridges, the actual data the game needs is already on the disc itself, as the game uses a GBA emulator Nintendo developed in-house to run the games.

Pokemon Box: Ruby and Sapphire

For some reason, these compilations tried to claim they worked by streaming the original cartridge data through a Link Cable in order to play them on a bigger screen. And while it is true that they require the GBA cartridges, the actual data the game needs is already on the disc itself, as the game uses a GBA emulator Nintendo developed in-house to run the games.

Game Boy Color

METAL GEAR SOLID MASTER COLLECTION Vol.2

As with the previous volume, it includes both ported and emulated games. In this case, Metal Gear Solid (known as Metal Gear: Ghost Babel in Japan) for the Game Boy Color is included as an emulated game.

Game Gear

Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut

Unlike the original version released for the Dreamcast, Sonic Adventure DX: Director's Cut includes all twelve Sonic games released on the Game Gear through emulation and all of them can be played by selecting "Mini Game Collection" in the menu. Such feature marks the debut of the original Sonic Drift and Tails' Skypatrol outside Japan. Sadly, Sega removed the Game Gear emulation support in the HD re-releases for PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and its 2011 PC version.

All Sonic games for the Game Gear would be available through Sonic Origins with its respective (paid) DLC, Sonic Origins Plus.

Sonic Origins Plus

The DLC for Sonic Origins includes all 12 Sonic the Hedgehog Game Gear games which were emulated rather than remade from scratch like the main games. Alongside, Gear-to-Gear Cable emulation were added for games that does support it, allowing Vs. matches against another player locally.

The emulator used on the compilation would be re-used later in Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties with the purpose of emulating additional Game Gear games (compared with Sonic Origins Plus, Sonic Chaos and Sonic Drift were included).

Master System

Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 11: Hokuto no Ken

This budget remake of Hokuto no Ken (known outside Japan and Taiwan as Black Belt) includes an emulation of the original Master System game as a bonus feature.

The original game was later featured in Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise, alongside other Sega Arcade games.

Mega Drive/Sega Genesis

Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 17: Phantasy Star generation: 2

This remake of Phantasy Star II includes the original Mega Drive version to play. Only the Japanese version is available.

Sega Smash Pack Volume 1

This compilation of Genesis games for the Dreamcast contained a Genesis emulator and a plain-text document on how to use it. You can read the full story about it here.

Download: Sega Smash Pack - Echelon

Nintendo Entertainment System

Contra 4

The Nintendo DS version of the game includes emulations of the American (not Japanese or European) versions of Contra and Super C powered by a custom build of PocketNES for the handheld. Both can be unlocked by beating 4 and 8 tasks in Challenge Mode, respectively.

Excitebike 64

An emulation of the original Excitebike can be played by completing the tutorial mode in Excitebike 64.

Jajamaru Jr. Denshouki: Jalecolle mo Arisourou

A game in the Ninja JaJamaru-kun series, which includes emulated Famicom (NES) games as bonus. The games are Exerion, Formation Z, City Connection, Ninja JaJamaru-kun and Jajamaru no Daibouken. The emulation of these games is powered by PocketNES.

Many non-game elements were recycled later on a compilation called Moero!! Jaleco Collection, which also features emulated Famicom games, however, there's no original games proper for the handheld inside.

Metroid: Zero Mission

An emulation of the NES (not Disk System) version of Metroid can be played after beating Metroid: Zero Mission once, regardless of the number of items collected and play time. Unlike other re-releases, the NES version is used in all regional variants of the game, being introduced first in Japan and China (through iQue), as well in other areas where the Famicom (or its countless clones) were distributed over the NES.

NES Remix Series

NES Remix, NES Remix 2, NES Remix Pack, and Ultimate NES Remix used an emulator called Heritage. NES Remix uses Heri1. NES Remix 2 uses an updated version called Heri2. Ultimate NES Remix, the last of the NES Remix series, uses HeriC. The NES Remix Pack has both Heritage 1 and Heritage 2 and switches between them depending on the selected game. This is the first official emulator to have challenges wacky effects. No ROMs were tested.

Retro City Rampage

Retro City Rampage (as well Retro City Rampage DX) includes emulation of ROM City Rampage, an unfinished prototype of the game released for the NES. ROM City Rampage runs through a NES emulator and can be played by interacting with the "NES" available in The Player's house.

Pokémon Mini

Pokémon Channel

Like Stadium, Channel contained an emulator for playing Pokemon Mini games on the GameCube. It was later stripped out of the game as a stand-alone Pokemon Mini emulator for the GameCube. Later Pokemon Mini emulators have based some of their work on this feature.

Download: SHizZLE's Pokemon Mini Emulator

Compatibility is poor though - the emulator heavily modifies the game's code. When the extracted ROMs are played on regular GBA emulators, or regular non-32 MB GBA ROMs are injected in the compilation, the games do play but suffer a variety of glitches mostly involving sound.

Super Nintendo Entertainment System

Fight Night Round 2

The SNESticle emulator, which was made by the creator of NESticle, was used in the game Fight Night Round 2, and the game Super Punch-Out!! was included. The source code has been released on Github here; the source code is able to be compiled for PS2 and PC, with the repository including binaries for Windows and PS2.

Ninja Gaiden

This reboot of the franchise for the Xbox features an emulation of Ninja Gaiden Trilogy, as opposed to emulation of the original NES iterations. The first game is unlocked by getting 50 scarabs from Muramasa, while the second and third ones requires additional steps to unlock, including full gameplay of the first for the second one and full gameplay of the second for the third.

Pokémon Stadium GB Tower (Super Game Boy)

It's possible to play the Game Boy Pokémon games by using a Transfer Pak in Pokémon Stadium in GB Tower mode. This software emulator can boot many other Game Boy and even GBC games in SGB mode, but there seems to be a mechanism to detect the three officially supported games, and according to this thread on the KRIKzz forum, it's possible to circumvent the checks in another ROM with a vanilla Transfer Pak and unmodified North American copy of Pokémon Stadium. Not many useful tools are available, but in theory a romhack of Stadium could disable these checks (considering they're documented) and could even be placed in Stadium's ROM instead.

One notable thing about this emulator is that it contains an alternate revision of the CGB bootstrap that hasn't been used anywhere else.

Twinbee Collection

Pop'n Twinbee, originally a Super Nintendo title, was given an emulator for this compilation. However, the emulator they used is hacky. While the game ROM is unaltered, it was split across four individual pieces, making injections tedious but not impossible. This is similar to the approach used in the "I Love Mickey Mouse" re-releases of Mickey/Donald Mega Drive games for the Saturn.

Swapping the data with another ROM of the exact same size (like Tiny Toons Adventures) reveals occasional graphical glitches, and controller problems.

ZX Spectrum

GoldenEye 007

GoldenEye 007 contains a fully functioning ZX Spectrum 48x emulator that was discovered in 2012. The game contains 10 ROMs, all of which were made by Rare. You can read more about it here.

The emulator is also used in Donkey Kong 64 for Jetpac.

Download: Patch

Multiple

Animal Crossing: New Horizons (Nintendo Entertainment System, Famicom Disk System, Game Boy, and Super Nintendo Entertainment System)

Included with update 3.0.0, Animal Crossing: New Horizons features furniture items based on past Nintendo hardware. As the Villager, the player can play games in them. However, as with the company's Classics, a Nintendo Switch Online subscription is required to play. It does not include games based on hardware locked to the "Expansion Pack", including GameCube, which is a Nintendo Switch 2-exclusive, and Sega Genesis, which is a third-party system.

The emulated games are Clu Clu Land (Famicom), Ice Hockey (Famicom Disk System), Ice Climber (NES), Dr. Mario (Game Boy), Panel de Pon (Super Famicom) and F-Zero (SNES). Notably, the cartridge version of Clu Clu Land is not available on the Japanese side of Nintendo Classics, as the Disk System version (based on Vs. Clu Clu Land) is included instead.

Atari 50: The Celebration Edition (Various hardware)

While this compilation consists mainly of emulated games, re-imagined versions of several titles are included, as well a re-creation of Touch Me. The hardware emulated includes Atari Arcade games, Atari 2600, Atari 8-bit, Atari 5200, Atari 7800, Atari Lynx and Atari Jaguar.

Further DLC packs includes emulations of Intellivision games, as well Arcade games from other companies distributed by Atari.

Neither the base game or its respective DLC packs does not include games published or distributed by Atari Games, as those titles are part of the Midway catalogue purchased by Warner Bros. in 2009.

Castlevania Dominus Collection (Nintendo DS and Konami arcade games)

While this compilation consists mainly of emulated games, a new game, Haunted Castle Revisited, is included. It runs on a similar engine as the Rebirth games from M2 on the Wii.

The emulated games are all Castlevania games for the Nintendo DS alongside the Arcade game Haunted Castle. Their emulation is powered by m2engage.

The Legend of Zelda Collector's Edition (Nintendo Entertainment System and Nintendo 64)

Nintendo released a promotional disc with some GameCubes that contained some of the mainline entries in The Legend of Zelda series and a demo of The Wind Waker. To get the NES and N64 games running, Nintendo used in-house emulators to recreate the original experience, albeit with occasional crashes and analog sensitivity being a tad excessive for what the original console really offered.

NES emulation was already done for the GameCube re-release of Animal Crossing, where they modified some FDS BIOS images, didn't support iNES headers and only a limited amount of mappers. The N64 emulator is more interesting; it was later extracted in a standalone format and a custom ROM injector was implemented.

Compatibility is very low, with only these games confirmed working: Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Star Fox 64, Kirby 64 (partially working), Zelda: Majora's Mask, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Zelda: OoT Master Quest, Duke Nukem 64, Mace: The Dark Ages, Wave Race, Star Soldier, Pilot Wings. Possibly other games too.

Download: Nintendo 64 Emu

Like a Dragon (Yakuza) series (Various Sega hardware)

The following (emulated) games are playable in various Like a Dragon (Yakuza) games:

• Yakuza 5: Virtua Fighter 2 (Sega Model 2)
• Yakuza 0: Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone, OutRun and Super Hang-On (Sega Super Scaler and Sega System 16 games)
  • Yakuza 0 Director's Cut features the same Arcade games from the original without new additions.
• Yakuza 6: The Song of Life: Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone, OutRun and Super Hang-On (Sega Super Scaler and Sega System 16 games)
• Yakuza Kiwami 2: Virtua Fighter 2 and Cyber Troopers Virtual-On (Sega Model 2 games)
• Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise: OutRun, Space Harrier and Super Hang-On (Sega Super Scaler games)
  • The Master System game Hokuto no Ken (previously marketed outside Japan and Taiwan as Black Belt) is also available to play.
• Judgment: Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone, Fighting Vipers and Motor Raid (Sega Super Scaler, Sega System 16 and Sega Model 2 games)
  • Judgment Remastered adds OutRun and Virtua Fighter 2 (the latter replaces a custom Puyo Puyo game).
• Yakuza: Like a Dragon: Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone, OutRun, Super Hang-On and Virtua Fighter 2 (Sega Super Scaler, Sega System 16 and Sega Model 2 games)
• Lost Judgment: Space Harrier, Fantasy Zone, Super Hang-On, Fighting Vipers, Sonic the Fighters and Motor Raid (Sega Super Scaler, Sega System 16 and Sega Model 2 games)
  • Sega Master System games are also available to play. The game's paid DLC also includes additional Master System games.
• Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name: Virtua Fighter 2, Sonic the Fighters, Motor Raid, Fighting Vipers 2 and Sega Racing Classic 2: Power Edition (Sega Model 2 and Sega Model 3 games)
  • Sega Racing Classic 2: Power Edition is a brand-less version of Daytona USA 2: Power Edition.
    • Sega Master System games are also available to play. Although there is a single SG-1000 game (Flicky), it is treated as a Master System game instead, thanks to its backwards compatibility mode.
• Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth: Virtua Fighter 3tb, Sega Bass Fishing and Spikeout: Final Edition (Sega Model 3 games)
• Like a Dragon: Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii: Fighting Vipers 2, The Ocean Hunter, Sega Racing Classic 2: Battle on the Edge, Sega Racing Classic 2: Power Edition, Spikeout: Final Edition, Virtua Fighter 3 and Virtua Fighter 3tb (Sega Model 3 games)
  • Sega Racing Classic 2: Battle on the Edge is a brand-less version of Daytona USA 2: Battle on the Edge.
    • As with The Man Who Erased His Name, SG-1000 and Master System games are available to play.
• Yakuza Kiwami 3 & Dark Ties: Fighting Vipers, Motor Raid, Virtua Fighter 2/2.1 (Sega Model 2 games), Emergency Call Ambulance, Magical Truck Adventure (Sega Model 3 games) and Slashout (Sega NAOMI)
  • Sega Game Gear games are also available to play. It introduces Sonic Chaos, PAC-MAN, G-LOC: Air Battle, Shinobi, Woody Pop, Galaga 2, Columns, Sonic Drift, Fantasy Zone Gear, Mappy, Puzlow Kids (Puyo Puyo) and Streets of Rage.

Custom Arcade minigames based on The House of the Dead, Puyo Puyo and Taiko no Tatsujin are featured through the series, but they are not emulated.

METAL GEAR SOLID MASTER COLLECTION Vol.1 (Nintendo Entertainment System and PlayStation)

This compilation includes important titles in the Metal Gear series, both ported and emulated. Metal Gear (NES), Snake's Revenge, and Metal Gear Solid (including the VR Missions discs) are emulated games, powered by m2engage.

While the games Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake from MSX are also included, they are based off their previous ports from Metal Gear Solid HD Collection rather than being emulated, likely to avoid licensing royalties with MSX Licensing Corporation.

PAC-MAN WORLD 2 Re-PAC (Namco arcade games and Super Nintendo Entertainment System)

This remake of Pac-Man World 2 includes emulations of Pac-Man, Pac-Mania (both Arcade games) and Pac-Attack (SNES). For the remake, Ms. Pac-Man was removed and for Pac-Attack, the game is now the same edited version included on Pac-Man Museum+, which replaced Ms. Pac-Man with Pac-Mom. This was made due to licensing issues between AtGames and Bandai Namco Entertainment.

In the original, the Arcade games (plus Ms. Pac-Man) were ports from the Namco Museum games on PlayStation, while Pac-Attack was the PlayStation port featured in Namco Anthology 2.

PC Engine Collections (PC Engine and PC Engine CD)

Hudson Soft re-released many of their PC Engine/TurboGrafx-16 exclusives through compilations on the PSP through emulation, and for PS3 as well on both the Japanese and North American PlayStation Stores. These compilations use top-notch emulators with many scaling options, and the process of injecting other games is easy.

For standard PC Engine cartridge releases (HuCard), the following compilations can be used as surrogates:

• Soldier Collection PC Engine Best Collection

For PC Engine CD games, the above compilations can be used in addition to:

• Far East of Eden Collection
• Ginga Oujou Sama Densetsu Collection

Dump the UMD to ISO format with the method of your choosing (like CFW), and open the ISO's contents with UMDGen.

The game images are usually under the directory PSP_GAME/USRDIR/CONTENT/CDROM:

• PCE HuCard Cartridge games: PCE files. Exact same as No-Intro dumps.
• PCE CD-ROM² games: folders named something like HCDxxxx (usually the release identifier). HCD/AT3/BIN files are inside, which are in fact a regular PCE-CD ISO in CUE/WAV/BIN format (TOC files are also used) with the WAV sound files converted to the native PSP audio format (AT3). Instructions about how to convert them can be found here in Japanese, and here's a mirror to the pceconv tool used.
• BIOS file: SYSCARD3P.PCE, needed for CD emulation. Should not be replaced.

Rename your ROMs (HuCard games) or ISOs (CD games) to match the internal filenames, and drag and drop those in UMDGen to replace the existing files (confirm overwriting existing files). You can delete the PMF videos used by the collection's gallery mode to make the ISO smaller. When you're done, go to File and Save as ISO (CSO is smaller but doesn't play well on real hardware).

You can do the same with standalone PSN releases of TG-16 games which were made available as well on the PSP/PS3/Vita PSN. You just have to sniff the PKG, extract it, decrypt it and replace the PCE files or ISO dumps just like with the other collections. After that, you just have to re-encrypt them and put the files on your console to play those. More detailed instructions exist on Wololo.net.

Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 23: Sega Memorial Selection (Sega arcade games and SG-1000)

For each game available in this collection, a remake and an emulation of the originals are included. The games are Borderline, Congo Bongo, Doki Doki Penguin Land, Head On and Tranquilizer Gun.

Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 28: Tetris Collection (Sega arcade games and Mega Drive)

Although mainly consists of emulated games, this compilation includes a new game called Tetris New Century, which is an updated intake of the original version of Tetris released by Sega for their Sega System 16 hardware. It was also updated to fit into The Tetris Company's guidelines.

Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 30: Galaxy Force II: Special Extended Edition (Various Sega hardware)

Mainly being focused on emulated games, this compilation includes a new game called Galaxy Force Neo Classic, which features upgraded visuals and soundtrack.

Sega Ages 2500 Series Vol. 33: Fantasy Zone Complete Collection (Various Sega hardware)

As with volumes 28 and 30 of Sega Ages 2500, this compilation includes a new game called Fantasy Zone Neo Classic, which is a budget remake of the Famicom version of Fantasy Zone made by Sunsoft (the remake in question was developed by M2).