Am I a good or a bad gamer?

[Artwark]

So basically you are saying that you want to play the old NES and probably SNES/N64 as well games but have doubts regarding emulating?

There's the Virtual Console on the Wii, Wii U and the 3DS that provide NES games (with the Wii having the most), without using a credt card there are also top up eShop cards that you can buy in stores that have a value but since you live in India (compared to the US/EU), it is a problem.

Now I've checked Nintendo's official website and there doesn't seem to be any support from India whatsoever so it is Nintendo's fault for not providing the services you want (I know Sony do have PSN for PS3 and Vita in India, not sure about Microsoft). Then again Nintendo didn't give Europe and Oceania much of a toss until the DS era since all they focused on is Japan and America. So even though you want to support Nintendo, you can't since they don't support your region yet.

Since I don't know regarding Nintendo's state in India, I have to ask you a couple of questions:

1) Regarding your 3DS and Wii (maybe add the NGC as well), what region are your games? Do they have a letter like E, T or M on the cover (American)? Use the PEGI age rating like 3,7,12,16 or 18 (European)? Do they use another system (I'm only vaguely know the Australia/New Zealand ratings)?

2) Can you access the eShop on your 3DS? If you can, what prices do they display? Dollars? Pounds? Euros? or Rupees (your currency)?

If it is the former, you are pretty much screwed where you have to import top up eShop cards from the Internet and maybe also VPN to think it is the US region. If it is the latter there might be a chance but I don't know. If you can't access the eShop, you might also be screwed.

As for alternatives, your GBA can play old Game Boy games so you would be able to get Super Mario Land 1 & 2, Super Mario Bros Deluxe, Mario & Yoshi, Mario's Picross, Mario Golf, Mario Tennis, Alleyway (Breakout clone that features Mario on the cover) and the various Game & Watch Gallery games (that's just for Mario, there are other games). There is a range called NES Classics on the GBA that have a single NES game on a cartridge but playing the game looks squished and I would rather recommend Super Mario Bros. Deluxe than the GBA version due to extra stages and features.

You wouldn't have problems playing old NES games on your computer since many of the games on that system are no longer supported by the developers and many of them no longer exist. Yes, there are legal and moral issues but you have to remember something. In the late 90s, Nintendo was against emulation but yet in 2006 they set up the Virtual Console that does the same thing. Some people argue that you are paying for ROMs. Personally I only download a ROM from a company if I can't provide the same experience myself (e.g. official English translations of Wonder Boy in Monster Land/Monster World IV), has extras (Sonic the Fighters) or high quality.

If worst comes to worst, you could buy an old NES and some games but that would mean buying online and they might not ship to India. You are probably used to Famiclones, sort of like Russia, China and South America so there might be pirated carts of some games that you want (one of them is Super Mario Bros 2: The Lost Levels that was only released on the Famicom Disk System in Japan normally).

(Note: I have used emulators for years and the only systems that I go for real hardware are the N64 [lousey emulation], Gamecube/Wii/PS2 [computer too poor to run them and still have my launch NGC] and the Xbox [no proper emulation to the point that I bought one recently]. Anything older than them systems or less powerful, emulation is okay except the Saturn but that's another thing.)

1.Mine is USA. Its ESRB.

2.Whenever I got to eshop(And yes I can go to eshop btw) It displays in dollars.

I guess my only hope is to get a prepaid card.

But thanks for all your help. Now I'm bumped up that I finished playing earthbound through emulator....What luck! To think that they actually released Earthbound in US.
:(