Is emulation cheating?

Is emulation cheating? My question isn't based on the legality of emulation, rather, the real issue is the level of achievement that the player should feel when beating an emulated game.

I've been big into playing games on their actual systems so that I can enjoy the nostalgia of playing a game the way that it was originally intended. Emulation isn't perfect, although in my experience it is usually pretty close. Despite the small changes that occur with emulation, what really changes the experience is the ability to save whenever you desire. This is a massive feature that is absent from every retro game that I can think of.

With most games, you have the ability to save at certain points, or in the case of most retro games, you never can save. Some games have password systems, but there are numerous games that expect you to win in one sitting. Save states allow you to begin your game at any point you wish, so if there's a difficult part of a game, you can just save right before you tackle it, save during it, and then save again right after it. All it takes is the push of a button and you are basically invincible. If you're playing on an emulator, unless you're incredibly disciplined, you won't play the game "straight up."

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I had such a ridiculously hard time with Double Dragon II's platforming. I was fantastic at the actual combat, but I would die due to the stupid jumps. Then, because the game has no continues, I start from the very beginning of the game only to reach the same stupid jumps and die again. Now, if I was playing on an emulator, I could just save before that part and save again after beating it without losing any lives. There's no penalty!

There's another option that I also have: playing the platforming part over and over again from a save state so that I can practice. If there's a tough part of a game, I can master that tough part until I'm good enough to play the game without the save state. Is that cheating? To an extent, it is. If you were playing the actual game you wouldn't have that option.

Like it or not, part of the challenge from playing any game comes from the rules that it defines. If Double Dragon II wants me to start the whole game over again after missing a few difficult jumps, then that is playing the game as it was intended.


Because of emulation, I really don't know which speed runs I should respect and which I shouldn't. Back in the day, you'd watch a friend make a run through a particular game and you'd be impressed because you knew that he/she worked within the confines of the game and weren't able to take any shortcuts. They didn't have the option to play the final boss of a game over and over to improve; they reached the final boss after playing the game in its entirety. For games that had to be beaten in one sitting, speed runs were pretty spectacular feats. Playing a game on an emulator is the video game equivalent to taking steroids and playing sports.

When considering the inconvenience of playing through a game in one sitting, or some of the ridiculously high difficulty levels of some vintage games, playing a game on an emulator feels like the superior choice. Double Dragon II is much more fun on an emulator; it just isn't a pure experience.