NES emulators are nothing new - the earliest ones came out in the mid 90s, and throughout the years have landed on every possible device, from PCs and handhelds like the PSP and DS, to modern smartphones.
Each emulator has striven for successively greater accuracy and performance, but aside from special effects like shaders and CRT emulation, they haven't really done anything new with the system.
Enter 3DNes, a newly-released project that shakes up the NES emulation scene by applying a real 3D depth to classically 2D NES games like "Super Mario Bros." and "Tetris."
The emulator makes use of shape-detection algorithms that automatically scans each scene for sprites and background tiles, and converts them into 3D objects, which are then positioned in a new 3D scene in a variety of thicknesses and depths that the algorithm determines.
In the best cases, the results are stunning - you can zoom in and rotate the scene around, and objects and characters cast shadows realistically. Absolutely incredible for something generated automatically.
In other games where the results are less than ideal, 3DNes allows users to configure each object manually. Users can click on screen elements like walls, character sprites, or projectiles, and perform operations like moving them to the background, adjusting their scale, thickness and 3D shape, and much more.
Edits will be saved, and the algorithm will even adapt to the manual configuration, letting it apply similar effects to other objects of the same kind. Users can also export their configurations, and download configuration files created by the community.
3DNes was originally being sold for $30, but is now being given away for free at its website. Users can choose to get the free download version, or opt-in to an early access program for $4.99 that lets them download the latest builds as they are released.