Emulator and Rom Sites - Part 5

Rom Hustler

The Rom Hustler website was created in 2004. In the beginning, it offered downloads of emulators and ROMs for the main gaming systems, including computers such as MSX 1 and 2. It also had its own forum. And like any other website, it brings news about emulation. Emulanium, Retrogames, Free Roms, CoolROM and others began to become partners in the first years of the website. In 2005, a new layout and logo were created for the website. The website forum existed until 2008. In 2012, the layout and logo were changed to the ones we know today and a login system was created for the website.

Rom Hustler

This system allows unlimited downloads with a direct link, without any advertising, waiting or loading of a new page. The site was created with the domain romhustler.org, but it had also created the domain romhustler.net, which during 2004 only redirected to the .org domain. From 2005 onwards, this was reversed, and the .net extension ended up being the default for the site. This lasted until 2019, when the site once again started using the .org version. The site is updated to this day and supports the main emulators and ROMs of today.

ROM Hacking

The Romhacking website was created in 2000 by Neil. Neil was mainly helped by InVerse and Sheex. The website mainly offers utilities and documents to help you get started with ROM hacking. It all started with the website with the extension romhacking.com, which also hosted several other websites, such as Zatos, Vice and Gaijin. In 2001, the website migrated from the .com server to parodius.com, an important emulation page hosting website. With it, it also took its partner websites to Parodius. Despite this, it kept the .com domain until 2006. In 2001, it also launched the domains romhacking.org and romhacking.net (the latter paid for by its friend Koitsu).

ROM Hacking

In 2002, Neil, due to financial and personal problems, gave up on the project, leaving a farewell text only on the .com domain, closing the .org and .net domains. In 2003, a repository of information and downloads was created on the website, mainly managed by InVerse, alongside other partners. In 2006, the group that managed the website created its own forum. From 2007 onwards, the .com domain had several different owners and websites, none of them related to the world of romhacking. Regarding its layout, it only had one, used in lilac on the .com domain, and blue on the .org and .net domains. In the repository phase in 2003, it did not use a layout, it only had two banners, both in 2003. In the forum phase in 2006, it had its own layout and logo.

ROMHacking

In parallel, in 2005, a group of romhackers led by Nightcrawler purchased the domain romhacking.net, previously used by Neil. This site has nothing to do with Neil's project. Night, like Neil, had also been in the world of ROM hacking for many years. The site has its own database with all the games and translations, sent by people from all over the world, in several languages. It also provides several utilities. The site also provided its own chat. In 2006, it created its own forum. Its own Wikipedia, called Data Crystal, was created in 2010. The site changed its layout and logo in 2013 and 2017. The site is updated to this day and its news is posted on its own forum. Romhacking is considered the largest hack, translation and homebrew site in the world.

PO.B.R.E

Brazilian Romhacking, known as PO.B.R.E (Brazilian Romhacking and Emulation Portal) was created in 2007. At the beginning, more than two dozen people contributed to the site. The approach is similar to Romhacking, with translations and hacks, but in Portuguese. The site also had two partnerships, with the Unified Translation Forum, created in 2000, and with ROMHackingWiki created in 2006 (which existed until around 2008).

PO.B.R.E

It also mentioned projects, the national and international scene, tutorials and news. The site provides translations and hacks of the main consoles, arcades and portables, as well as translations of PC games. In 2015, the forum changed its address and was redesigned. The old forum files were placed in another address within the new forum server from 2016 onwards. In 2021, to celebrate the site's 13th anniversary, its layout changed. From 2021 onwards, it also started offering emulator downloads.

EmuCR

The EmuCR website was created in 2009. In fact, the website's name was just Emu, but since it was hosted on the Crimsom Rain portal, it became known as Emu Crimsom Rain. Also in 2009, emucr.com was created, keeping the same layout and creating its own logo. The website has a single goal: to inform everyone about the updates of all major emulation projects, release by release, both arcade and console projects. And something different happens, some projects announce their updates only on EmuCR, as was the case with BSNES and Higan for Super Nintendo and multi-consoles, and today with Ares, also for multi-consoles, and as is the case with SSF for Sega Saturn, among others. The website also has its own forum, also created in 2009, in addition to various utilities. The website is updated to this day.

Sega Retro

The famous Sega Retro website was created in 2011 to be a Wikipedia (or wiki, as you prefer) of Sega's history. At the beginning, it had 1,902 articles written, and today it has more than 25 thousand. A general tool about the website, it has information about all of Sega's arcade, console and portable systems. It also brings official documentation of the company's main consoles. Several products launched, such as magazines, sound equipment, karaoke, audiobooks, and a multitude of other products. Articles about the history of Sega and its creators and developers.

Sega Retro

There are also articles about consoles that are not from Sega, such as Sony, NEC, Nintendo, Microsoft and Atari. And last but not least, the emulation of Sega hardware and all its projects, forks and ports. In 2015, its layout changed to what we know today. Without a doubt, Sega Retro is the website with the most information about Sega and one of the largest about consoles and portables in general.

Emutopia

Emutopia was created in 2011 by Matthew. The project is very similar to EmuCR, with updates on several emulation projects, including lesser-known ones. Similar to Zophar, it also likes to bring emulators for less common systems, such as Linux, Macintosh, and more recent ones, such as smartphones. In a simple and practical way, with no more than three tabs, the site covers updates on the latest emulation projects, plug-ins, utilities and front-ends, and finally emulators for computers, calculators, consoles, arcades and portable devices.

Emutopia

It also usually has simple, explanatory text, often original to the project in question. It also usually offers downloadable versions of the same project for various operating systems and from different dates. In 2012, it changed its layout and logo, and in 2019, it changed the background screen. The website was last updated in 2020.

Emulation General Wiki

The Emulation General Wiki (Emu Gen) was created in 2013, along with the Gametech Wiki website, which deals with technical information, mods and repairs for all types of video game hardware. Emulation General is a quick Wikipedia or encyclopedia with over 500 written articles. It is extremely complete, and talks about all emulators created for gaming hardware. In addition, it follows each update of each project still in development. Like Wikipedia, each page has a description of the topic.

Emulation General Wiki

The pages are divided by hardware, and each one talks about its release, closure, predecessor, successor, generation it is part of, emulators released, multi-emulator where they run and many other details about the subject. And the pages specifically about emulators are more summarized, focusing only on them. Both pages provide the versions, official websites and other details about these software. There are also articles about questions about bios, plug-ins, ROMs, ISO, user guides for some emulators, network games, LLE and HLE (low and high level emulation), among many others. The encyclopedia is updated to this day.

CD Romance

Now we get to more recent sites. The first one is CD Romance, created in 2018. Translations, romhacks, extras, such as bios and others, are some of the site's offerings. The main one is ROMs. They work with the main material from Sega, Nintendo, NEC and Sony, as well as MS-DOS and Win 3.1. They emphasize CD consoles right from the start, which is in fact their focus. Rare games from Playstation, Saturn and PC Engine are mainly found on the site. They also do great covers of scanned game covers, I believe, exclusively for the site. Regarding their layouts, as far as we have information, they have only had three, in 2018, 2021 and 2023. CD Romance is considered by many to be the favorite ROM site.

WOWRoms

WOWRoms. Created in 2018, it is the EmuParadise of today, but turbocharged. It leaves CD Romance and Planet Emu behind. It is without a doubt the largest ROM and emulator website today. It is available in six languages, including Portuguese. It has games from the main consoles from Sega, Nintendo, Atari, Sony and NEC up to the fifth generation. From arcade, it has all the classics running on MAME. For portables, it has the main ones up to the seventh generation, including Nintendo, Sega, Sony, Atari, Nokia, Neo Geo and Bandai. And computers from Amstrad, Apple, Acorn, Amiga, Commodore, Atari, Windows, Sega, Sharp, Dos, Sinclair and ZX Spectrum. The website has 156 thousand games. Their respective emulators are also there for download.

Roms Kingdom

Roms Kingdom. Created in 2019, it presents its website as a large catalog of titles to choose from in movie apps. It offers fewer systems than its competitors. 52 in total. Among consoles, portables, arcades and computers from the 1980s to the 2010s. There are almost 114 thousand games in total. It also releases emulators and bios for these systems. Roms Kingdom offers its website in six languages, including Portuguese. The website will close its activities in 2023.

Roms Games

Roms Games.net, created in 2020, is another well-known gaming website. Unlike WOWRoms, it has a wider variety of systems, totaling 105 in total, including computers, consoles, portables and arcades. It also provides access to newer generation ROMs, such as GameCube, Wii, Dreamcast, Xbox, PSP, Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS. In total, they have 157 thousand games, narrowly surpassing WOWRoms. The systems that win the most are Nintendo DS, Gameboy Advance, PSP, Playstation, NES, Gameboy and Wii. On their website, they also post several articles about curiosities, recent releases and others, such as apps, console curiosities, celebrations, emulators, among many others.

Romsmania

The Romsmania website was also created in 2020, and works with five specific niches, PC, Nintendo, Sega, Sony and Xbox. It only works with consoles and games released around twenty years ago. These include the Dreamcast, Nintendo 64, GameCube, Wii, Wii U and Switch, Playstation, 2, 3 and 4, Xbox, 360 and One consoles, and the Gameboy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, PSP and PSVita handhelds, with 12,600 games in total. Highlighting almost 4,000 PC games and almost 1,100 Playstation 2 games.

Romspure

Romspure is the last on the list. Created in 2021, its focus is specifically on console and handheld ROMs, including the seventh and eighth generation of consoles, such as Playstation 3 and Playstation 4, and the eighth generation of handhelds, such as Nintendo 3DS and PSVita. There are 27 systems in total with almost 28 thousand games available for download. As for emulators, it only releases Nintendo DS, GameCube, Super Nintendo and Playstation 2. The site also has articles on video games, franchises and others, mainly in the field of handhelds and Nintendo. These files are in the blog section of the site.