Thoughts: Retro games and emulation
My recent experience of emulating and playing retro games on the steam deck
In articles prefixed with “Thoughts” I share some ideas or commentary on stuff I have seen in the gaming industry / community rather than a review of a game. This time I am looking at retro gaming on the steam deck.
I recently fell into a bit of a retro gaming and emulation hole. This was something I had dabbled with when I first got the steam deck, but as my desire was to play GameBoy games I didn’t really feel that this worked well on the steam deck. I wanted a horizontal handheld for the proper form factor.
Without going into too many details I did get the TrimUI Brick and I loved setting it up and making it my own. While it can come with preloaded games I found that way too overwhelming and I just wanted my old school Pokémon and Harvest Moon style games on it.
This success then got me thinking about trying it again on the steam deck. Previously I was a bit overwhelmed with the whole process such as, having to go to Desktop mode, using a keyboard and mouse on the tiny screen, and all the words like bios files and rom files were a bit much. My other half had done some emulating previously to be able to play his copy of Breath of the Wild at 60FPS, but I am also stubborn and want to do things myself.
I am a bit like that. I jump in at the deep end get overwhelmed, let it digest, and then go back and unravel things step by step and then things (hopefully) tend to come together. I wish I could just start at the beginning and go step by step from the start as it would feel less overwhelming and stressful, but it just hasn't ever happened that way.
Getting started
There are some great easy to follow resources on how to set up retro games and emulators on the steam deck and my favourite is by Russ from Retro Games Corp as he also writes things down and then has videos to go with it. You can find his stuff for emulating on the steam deck here. I find just listening and watching someone doesn’t always work for me. I need to be able to read as well. I actually often have the awful captions on, in youtube.
Now because I don’t want to become an expert I chose EmuDeck, and just went with the beginner set up. My main goal was to play some Wii games, such as the Metroid Prime Trilogy and the odd Zelda game.
The install and set up went well to begin with. I even set up Retroachievements too. I tried my favourite Mega Drive games, some SNES games and then eventually loaded the Wii games and this is where the next bit of fun started. :D
Playing a Kirby game the D-pad was not going left and right. I had to press up and down to go left and right. This is of course because it was emulating a wii controller (or so I am told by the internet). So I had to find out how to fix this and set the controls up properly. OK not the end of the world as it was mostly a 2D platformer. I am still smiling at this point and the tinkering for a beginner was not too much … yet.
Shortcuts!
Before I move on, a big tip! Make sure to look up the shortcuts for the emulation program you use. Knowing which one is the hotkey and how to create saves on the fly (and not constantly overwrite the same one) are essential to get the most out of this experience. For EmuDeck the shortcuts can be found in their wiki. And you can also add a DeckyLoader app called EmuDecky. This lets you check EmuDeck’s hotkeys, manage EmuDeck Quick Settings, update your emulators and more from the game view rather than going to the internet or going to Desktop mode.
Quality of Life!? Not if you want that achievement!
A cool thing about retro gaming now on emulators is that you have access to some cheats, such as being able to save at any point in time and then later being able to load up the save file and continue. You don’t have to sit and play Aladdin for 3 hours straight. This is the main reason my Mega Drive is in its box in the cupboard upstairs and not being used to play these games right now. I love this convenience of having a save. Who nowadays gets 3-5 hours uninterrupted gaming time as an adult!?
What I didn’t know is that setting up Retroachievements spoiled some of these quality of life improvements.
I could not load my save file. I kept getting errors. Another search later, it appears that when you set up Retroachievements, it turns on “Hardcorde” mode by default, which means it wants you to play in the original type of way. No save files, no saving at any point, no forwarding etc. These quality of gaming life improvements are labelled cheats. So to be able to load a save file I had to boot back into Desktop mode of my Steam deck and turn this off. Easy enough if you know about it but frustrating while you don’t. I guess now I can’t show my friends what a hardcore gamer I am and any achievement earned now, will be tagged as being earned with hardcore mode off. :D
I like that there is an option, I just wish it was easier to deal with on the steam deck as a new comer to all of this, but also that these influencers writing about these features warn you. Nowhere did I see that having Retroachievements installed and set up would interfere with these quality of life things.
Metroid Prime hacks
This takes me to my biggest learning yet, while trying to play the Metroid Prime Trilogy on the Wii Emulator Dolphin.
I load the game, I am excited, but a bit confused because there isn’t any gyro or right stick control. To be able to select any settings or games I have to be careful and use the touch screen. Multiple times do I started Metroid Prime 2 in multiplayer mode on hardcore settings … I quite and try again. Eventually I get into the first game and I watch the intro and am excited. Samus jumps out of the ship and I can only move with the left stick. Nothing lets me control the camera. This is so bizarre. So I quite again and remember my experience with the Kirby game and jump into the controller settings.
I play with the controller settings, feel really confident but then when trying to load the game I end up getting errors about needing a Nunchuck. Luckily we have google at our fingertips. Turns out that EmuDeck has a special offshoot of the Wii Emulator installed called Primehack and if you place the game rom file in this folder, you get working controls and nicer graphics. Now there are many videos on this with different approaches of how to deal with this. and I think mine isn’t the most elegant solution as I now, no longer have the game in my wii games folder, BUT I can find it and play it and it looks nice and most importantly works!
Again once I knew this it was so easy but retro gaming really is for the tinkerer/patient google. :D
While I am happy I have learned a lot and managed to make things work, it has been quite a journey.
Do you retro game on the steam deck or similar device? Any tips or fav set ups?
Before I go into emulators, I ask myself: Did you finish your backlog? No, then you can't go into emulators ;-)
Congratulations on figuring it out! Having the determination, courage, and (let's be real) patience to tinker and follow guides is such an underrated part of getting technology of any kind to play nice.
As an aside, this is also how you unlock the full power of Linux inside your Steam Deck.