Anika Begay
The Vision Pro got its first Virtual Boy emulator in an app called VirtualFriend, finally giving me, a person with an irrational love for Nintendo’s short-lived console, the ability to play it in immersive 3D again. The app is also available for iOS and iPadOS, where it’s a virtually identical experience, minus the 3D effect.
The first games I played after downloading VirtualFriend were the ones I owned as a child: Red Alert, Wario LandAND Mario’s tennis. I’m happy to say that, aside from a few minor audio issues, Red alertThe games work fine – everything is exactly as I remembered.
VirtualFriend supports Bluetooth controllers and keyboard control on the Vision Pro, as well as touchscreen buttons if you’re playing on an iPhone or iPad. Visually, the games look as good as a Virtual Boy game can, and they get a little help from the app, which lets you customize the console’s two-tone color palette. VirtualFriend also has an eye adjustment slider that helps you adjust the image if you find that a particular game isn’t working for you.
The big missing features are controller mapping and the ability to save your game at any time using save states. (Developer Adam Gastineau acknowledged the latter in an open issue on the project’s GitHub page.)
However, VirtualFriend is easy to recommend if you’re even remotely curious about playing Virtual Boy games or, like me, have owned and loved the console. It’s free with the option to tip the developer, doesn’t display ads, and, according to its App Store listing, won’t collect your data. It’s just good, clean, mid-90s VR fun.
