So, I was searching for some good DS games online to play next week during my trip to Washington, and after much random clicking, I stumbled upon something that dropped my jaw a few inches. There's a Super Nintendo emulator for the DS? You can play awesome old-school SNES games on a handheld device? WHY DIDN'T THE INTERNET TELL ME ABOUT THIS BEFORE?

I adore SNES (as well as DOS), in fact, you could consider me a 2-D elitist; I'm often heard mumbling things such as "Back when I was a kid, games had heart, games had substance. Every single mother fucking pixel." When I read about this SNES emulator for DS, I was excited, but cautious that the setup would be complex. Quite the opposite; setup was surprisingly very simple. Here's a quick guide:

(You need a flash cart + MicroSD card combo to be able to play SNES on your DS. A flash cart could be considered as a "hard drive" on your DS that can play various multimedia files.)

First, download SNES roms to your computer (I use coolrom.com). If neccessary, extract the downloaded rom file. You should have one .smc file per game.

Second, download SNEmulDS, the most popular SNES emulator for DS, to your computer, then extract. Connect the MicroSD card to your computer, and copy SNEmulDS.nds to the root directory of your MicroSD card hard drive.

Third, create a folder named "SNES" (without quotes) in the root directory of your MicroSD card hard drive. Copy your SNES roms (.smc files) into this folder. Place the MicroSD card into your flash cart, your flash cart into your DS, turn on your DS, and load SNEmulDS. Enjoy.

Full instructions on how to use and configure SNEmulDS

Game compatibility list for SNEmulDS

Note: It is only illegal to download/play SNES roms which are protected by the ESA. The roms available for download on coolrom are not ESA protected.

Some of my favourite SNES games; Super Mario RPG, Donkey Kong Country 2, Tetris Attack, Flashback, Prince of Persia, Super Tennis, Chrono Trigger. Fun fact: I burst into tears at the end of Chrono Trigger when Robo was reunited with his robot girlfriend, and consider that moment to be one of the most moving moments of my life! I'm strong and totally not a nerd.