Not (just) seeing red: Virtual Boy emulator adds full color support

With Red Viper’s built-in color support, though, anyone with a 3DS modded for homebrew software can now easily add a bit of color to the Virtual Boy library. And running the emulator on the 3DS means you don’t even have to give up the Virtual Boy’s stereoscopic graphics to do so; Red Viper works with the filtered LCD screen on the 3DS to emulate the visual depth built into Virtual Boy games.

More than just Wario Land

Red Viper currently doesn’t have any “default” palettes to choose from, meaning it can take some manual fiddling to get multicolor games to look halfway decent (you can save your palettes on a per-game basis). Once you do, though, it’s impressive just how much color adds to games that were never designed to be seen in more than a few shades of red.

The higher contrast between the road and the racers helps make homebrew Virtual Boy Mario Kart much more playable.

Kyle Orland / Red Viper

The higher contrast between the road and the racers helps make homebrew Virtual Boy Mario Kart much more playable.

Kyle Orland / Red Viper

The light blue asteroids in the background make everything feel more space-y

Kyle Orland / Red Viper

The light blue asteroids in the background make everything feel more space-y

Kyle Orland / Red Viper

Adding some contrast between moving characters and background elements makes a game like Red Viper much more playable.

Kyle Orland / Red Viper

Adding some contrast between moving characters and background elements makes a game like Red Viper much more playable.

Kyle Orland / Red Viper

The light blue asteroids in the background make everything feel more space-y

Kyle Orland / Red Viper

Adding some contrast between moving characters and background elements makes a game like Red Viper much more playable.

Kyle Orland / Red Viper

Turn down the lights for a smooth jazz version of Panic Bomber

Kyle Orland / Red Viper

We feel like a blue and purple palette fits the setting of Galactic Pinball better than harsh reds.

We’ve found that high contrast yellow or green can really help sprites stand out from the jet black backgrounds that dominate most Virtual Boy releases. Accent colors in the blue or purple range, meanwhile, can help set off background elements and make them easier to distinguish from the foreground gameplay. Those color enhancements can be more than just aesthetic, too; in a game like Red Viper, distinct colors make it much easier to distinguish enemies from stationary obstacles in the game’s awkward wire-framed 3D.

After you’re done colorizing all the Virtual Boy ROMs you’ve dumped off of your own legitimately purchased cartridges (cough), it’s worth dipping a toe in the impressive collection of homebrew Virtual Boy games created by homebrew coders over the years. That includes impressive ports of games like Street Fighter II and Mario Kart and original efforts like a cartoony fish-eat-fish simulator or a hamburger based shoot-’em-up.

Whether you’re a Virtual Boy aficionado or new to the world, the newly colorized Red Viper is the perfect excuse to visit this odd cul-de-sac in Nintendo’s hardware history. Now if we could just convince Nintendo to release an official miniaturized set of Virtual Boy VR goggles à la the NES Classic.