Your old NES is gone. Your SNES is in a box at your mom's house — if it even still works. The cartridges you used to own go for $40–$80 each on eBay now. And if you want to play them on a modern console, you're looking at a $300 Switch plus $20/year for a subscription that gives you a fraction of the library you actually want.
Phone emulation sounds like a solution until you try it. Touchscreen controls make platformers unplayable. Notifications interrupt every boss fight. Your battery drains in two hours. And it never quite feels right — because it isn't. You're playing a game designed for physical buttons on a slab of glass.
Meanwhile, you spend hours every week on planes, trains, buses, and in waiting rooms with nothing to do but scroll through the same apps you always scroll through. Time you could be spending doing something that actually makes you feel good.
And if you want to share those games with your kids? Good luck explaining why they can't play Mario without spending $300 on hardware and paying a monthly fee.
It shouldn't be this complicated to play a game that came out in 1994.
