Game Boy emulator for PSP adds a dash of color

38 Comments by John Bardinelli May 25th 2007 1:58PM
Filed under: Hacks, Sony PSP

Fresh off the PSP homebrew press: an emulator that plays classic Game Boy games -- in full color! Created by a programmer called Brunni, the emulator is still in beta and isn't likely to be released for some time (Brunni likes things to be perfect). From the looks of it, this is more than a Super Game Boy-esque palette swap. A shaky-cam video (after the jump) shows Super Mario Land in crisp, colorful detail.

Tags: emulation, emulators, gameboy, homebrew, psp, rom, sony

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(Page 1) Reader Comments

Tim Harding: May 25th 2007; 2:05PM

That almost makes me wish I didn't sell my PSP, but it's hard to justify keeping a system just for emulation (which is all I used it for).

cc123: May 25th 2007; 2:08PM

Wii emulator for the PS3 in development: confirmed.

It would be pretty funny to see Wii games upscaled and smoothed out on the PS3.

AirIntake: May 25th 2007; 2:11PM

@cc123

Considering the power of a PS3 (or 360) vs the Wii, it should be possible.

Jack of No Trades Girl: May 25th 2007; 2:11PM

So... Sony needs Nintendo to survive...

JodyAnthony: May 25th 2007; 2:12PM

URGH I WANT NOW.

cc123: May 25th 2007; 2:17PM

@AirIntake

Yeah normally something like this would be out of the question but when you take into account the power difference between Wii and PS3/360 It's very possible.

Don't forget there is a N64 emulator for xbox1 and psp.

required: May 25th 2007; 2:18PM

fyi: the GameBoy Color also colorizes GameBoy games (you can spec 4-10 colors).

john: May 25th 2007; 2:20PM

not bad.... but where is the virtual boy emulation we so truly desire??

BPM: May 25th 2007; 2:21PM

When I was the top screenshot, I thought something was suspicious: It didn't look like SML simply recolored, but altered a bit: see how the sky on the right shot is a solid gradient, but on the original it isn't?

But when I saw the video, it was the same as the original. Guess that screenshot was a mock-up...

deaftly: May 25th 2007; 2:21PM

cool, i really hope this comes out soon

Almack64: May 25th 2007; 2:21PM

@ required

I had a GBC and I don't think you could specify the colors. As I remember it had the option of picking from four different color palette swaps similar to what super gameboy did.

required: May 25th 2007; 2:29PM

Almack64,

You can spec a colorset to use for colorizing games. I doubt this emulator actually lets you spec the color of individual elements, I'm guessing it will do it the same way as the GameBoy Color does it.

serotoninzero: May 25th 2007; 2:32PM

I thought the same as you did, BPM.

Weird.

It looks awesome though.

This might give me reason to go and beat Metroid 2, the only 2D Metroid game I've yet to beat...

AssemblyLineHuman: May 25th 2007; 2:38PM

I totally have this game on my calculator.

Brian: May 25th 2007; 2:45PM

Nice. Hopefully they'll cover TMNT: Fall of the Foot Clan...I loved that game.

VampireHunter Z: May 25th 2007; 2:51PM

Impossible!! Unless when Nintendo made the original game the sprites had color but at the display level it was only gray scale.

Walking Contradiction: May 25th 2007; 2:56PM

This makes the PSP trash.

Peeple: May 25th 2007; 3:22PM

The Super Gameboy had the capability built into it to add additional (read: more than 4) colors to specific games that were not programmed with the functionality in the first place. I recall Metroid 2 and Tetris, for example. I don't see any info on the Wikipedia page about this, but I'm reasonably certain that I'm not just making stuff up. This was seperate from the "super-gameboy enhanced" cartridges.

Kevlar: May 25th 2007; 3:31PM

As someone who has actually used the "Gameboy Colorizer" I can tell you this is no big feat. I actually tried to colorize Super Mario Land as well. The guy just probably did that to his ROM and called it ingenius.
They did it for Metroid 2 (Calling it M2DX), and a bunch of other games too. You can download IPX patches for most of them.
This is NOT a big deal.
Also, for anyone interested, the Gameboy Colorizer is avaliable here: http://www.geocities.com/brinstarfiles/downloads.html

jeffx: May 25th 2007; 3:35PM

always hated the fireballs in Super Mario Land

tactics: May 25th 2007; 3:38PM

i don't know why i let it piss me off, but it seems like the reason everyone even buys fucking psps is to emulate nintendo games. that's fucking whack.

-"superfan" tactics.

Almack64: May 25th 2007; 3:48PM

I always thought that SML was a whack version SMB. It actually turned me off to handhelds. That and how large they were :) I didn't buy one until GBC. When I think about it, its really funny I was pro-NES but anti-GB and Sega sucked. Man those were some akward and misguided years.

Brock: May 25th 2007; 3:54PM

@Jack of No Trades Girl

Yes retard... Sony was about to shut down it's assembly lines until this emulator came out! Shew... good thing this came out not a minute later, Sony would have been P@WNED!

ShortFuse: May 25th 2007; 3:57PM

This game brings back SOOOOOOOOO many memories. Back when the very first GameBoy came out. I was take it everywhere and play this and Super Mario Land 2

BPM: May 25th 2007; 4:00PM

Required,

Game Boy Color had 12 preprogrammed palettes, I believe (Up/Down/Left/Right+none/B/A), but nothing as extensive as this. It would've allowed for four colors for background images, and three colors (plus transparent) for sprites (sometimes playable and non-playable character sprites were assigned different palettes, doubling the amount of color available for sprites), but nothing as elaborate as this.

This has to be a custom coloring job, with each element being individually recolored.

Almack64: May 25th 2007; 4:25PM

@ BPM

That's what I thought too, that the pallets were preprogrammed in GBC. I just always thought there were only four Up/Down/Left/Right. Looks like I was missing out. Yet another great example of why you should read the instruction manual.

Sonicandtails: May 25th 2007; 5:15PM

Psh, screw that. I'd much rather stick with GBColorizer and running it in the Lameboy emulator for DS (which of course runs GB/GBC full speed). All this stuff does is help promote the steaming pile of crap that the PSP is.

NintendoFanbot: May 25th 2007; 5:35PM

Well at least the PSP is $79.99... oh wait. :P

Shadowsithe: May 25th 2007; 5:40PM

There are romhacks which add colour pallettes to old monochrome GB games with the use of the Gameboy Colorizer utility. I know Super Mario Land is one of the compatible titles. This seems fishy.

Steve: May 25th 2007; 6:30PM

Eh. That's OK, but I would really be impressed if it had an option to play old Gameboy games in their original yellow and green.

Rubang B: May 25th 2007; 6:41PM

Looks fake to me. Or they have to optimize each ROM at a time and I doubt they've done all 10 billion.

reppy: May 26th 2007; 3:00AM

Yeah, Rubang. That's kind of my feeling. Maybe someone edited the ROM so it's colorized. I don't see how any emulator could do this without some sort of heavy hand editing.

bm: May 26th 2007; 4:48AM

LOL, best game on the PSP. :D

incrediblebulk92: May 26th 2007; 8:54AM

Wow...now theres something worth playing on the PSP

chrono404: May 27th 2007; 11:49PM

@cc123
the PS3 SIXAXIS couldn't accoratly Emulate the Wiimote and Nunchuck. As well as they dont have a Way of duplicating the IR positioning. The PS3 Hardware may be more powerful, But the Controller can imate the Wii. Its a nice dream for people who cant find a Wii, but not Realistically happening.

Rob: May 28th 2007; 7:15AM

So what? I have a 3 year old mp3 player, and that has an gameboy emulator built in. You can download it for the iPod as well here:

http://www.rockbox.org/

HenryJonesJr: May 29th 2007; 12:44PM

Wow! How original! More "best game on PSP" and "now there's something worth playing on PSP" comments. Idiots, get some new lines already. I'm probably expecting too much from 'Cooking Mama' players. Maybe when you finally realize you're paying $30+ for games you could play on your cellphone for +-$5 you'll shut the hell up.

Eddy: Jul 9th 2007; 2:39PM

Thans its really usefull but I can suggest
http://www.pspgamesites.info/ for all psp games download sites rewievs and downloads. I found some really good stuff there :D

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