Released just last week following years of early access, 3dSen PC and 3dSen VR give NES games a new perspective following ten years of development. Made as a passion project to transform the NES emulator into something more unique, it iterates on the look of classic games by rendering them in 3D.

The emulator transforms supported classic NES games into fully playable 3D voxel dioramas, offering a fresh perspective when you want to replay some classics. It, of course, doesn’t come with its own ROMs, and you have to bring your own. Considering Nintendo’s notoriety with DMCA takedowns and even bricking Switch 2s if they are modded, you obviously won’t catch the solo developer sharing any game ROMs around.

Better yet, it’s also part of the Steam Summer Sale, and considering it runs on Linux, it makes it a top contender for an under $10 game for the Steam Deck (although Steam currently says compatibility is unknown). One user on ProtonDB says it works perfectly fine on the Deck with some tweaks.

Slide comparing 2D and 3D in game, Source 3dSen, Steam

Micro Mages in 2D and 3D, Source 3dSEN, Steam

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Features and supported games

As an emulator on PC, it offers some improvements over playing the games on native hardware. With the addition of quick save and load speeds, you can have on-the-go checkpoints, which a rollback and fast forward provide a speedier solution to as well.

There are also custom camera controls that allow you to change the perspective even further, which can be helpful and utilized in the VR version of the game/tool. Along with the real-time lighting and animated skyboxes, it creates a more immersive and alive gaming experience.

Below are the 101 games that the emulator supports for conversion into 3D, while also allowing them to run in standard 2D mode.

1. 2D Profile – to play games in 2D mode
2. Adventure Island
3. Adventure Of Lolo
4. Adventure Of Lolo 2
5. Adventure Of Lolo 3
6. Antarctic Adventure
7. Arkanoid
8. Balloon Fight
9. Batman
10. Battle City
11. Battle Kid
12. Bomberman
13. Bubble Bobble
14. Castlevania
15. Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers
16. Circus Charlie
17. City Connection
18. Clu Clu Land
19. Contra
20. Depths
21. Dig Dug
22. DonkeyKong
23. Donkey Kong 3
24. Donkey Kong Jr.
25. DrMario
26. Duck Hunt
27. Duck Tales
28. Duck Tales 2
29. Elevator Action
30. Excitebike
31. Flappy Bird
32. Flappy Bird FPV
33. Galaga
34. Ghosts ‘N Goblins
35. Goonies
36. Gyromite
37. Hogan’s Alley
38. Ice Climber
39. Jackie Chan’s Action Kungfu
40. Journey to Silius
41. Kungfu
42. Legacy Of The Wizard
43. Legend of Kage
44. Legend of Zelda
45. Lode Runner
46. Mappy
47. Mario Bros.
48. Mega Man 1
49. MegaMan 2
50. MegaMan 3
51. Metroid
52. Micro Mages
53. Pacman
54. Pinball
55. Pooyan
56. Popeye
57. Road Fighter
58. Shadow Of Ninja – Kage
59. Shatterhand
60. Snow Brothers
61. Spy Hunter
62. Super Bat Puncher
63. Super Mario Bros.
64. Super Mario Bros. 3
65. Tetris Nintendo
66. Tetris Tengen
67. TwinBee
68. Urban Champion
69. Wild GunMan
70. Wrecking Crew
71. Yie Ar Kung-Fu
72. Zooming Secretary
73. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link
74. Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest
75. Solomon’s Key
76. Fire ‘n Ice
77. Final Fantasy
78. Dragon Warrior I
79. Dragon Warrior II
80. Felix the Cat
81. Burger Time
82. Gradius
83. Life Force
84. Ninja Gaiden III
85. Blaster Master
86. Super Spike V’Ball
87. Mike Tyson PunchOut!!
88. Lunar Pool
89. Moai-kun
90. Binary Land
91. Flipull
92. Nuts & Milks
93. Quarth
94. Puzznic
95. Palamedes
96. Yoshi
97. Flappy
98. Tetris Famicom
99. Dragon Quest/Warrior III
100. Tiny Toon Adventures
101. Jackal

3dSen 1.0 release trailer

About the Author

Sebastian Kozlowski

With a fascination for technology and games, Seb is a tech writer with a focus on hardware, news, and deals. He is also a tester and reviewer for the site. Contact him @ [email protected]