Saturn emulator used in Cotton Tribute collection linked to SSF

Nintendo Switch owners now have another way to play Virtual Hydlide. Not only does the Cotton Guardian Force Saturn Tribute collection use an emulator to port the games, fans are finding the emulator was in development since the year 2000.

Within a few days after its release, fans found a way to inject their own Saturn ROMs into the emulator used by the developer, City Connection. A Switch device would need custom firmware in order to run this. Most games are compatible, playing at a decent performance with some input lag here and there. A handful of the tested games are found to be unplayable, like Bulk Slash and Mr. Bones.

But the broom stick wielding red haired Alice flies deeper into the rabbit hole.

A GBATemp user by the name of cucholix posted the ini files after decrypting part of the Cotton collection. Fans knowledgeable about the Saturn emulator SSF started realizing this looks incredibly familiar. Saturn Memories then posted this screenshot to Twitter, comparing the ini files on the Cotton rerelease to those of SSF.

Saturn Memories notes in his tweet, this could explain the input lag many players are noticing when playing the Cotton tribute on Switch. Shima, longtime developper of SSF, recently publicized his emulator source code. But it was quietly pulled from GitHub in early 2021. While SSF is revered as a reliable Saturn emulator, input lag is one of its most common issues. Saturn Memories credits Discord user tuglaw for bringing this to his attention.

We asked some homebrew developers what they think about the similarities. Knight0fDragon, known recently for his English translation patch of Dracula X for the Sega Saturn, calls it a “sure sign” that City Connection is using the SSF emulator. He said the threads on GBATemp break this down extensively. Knight believes the slower processor inside the Switch is causing input lag on the official Cotton rerelease. This input lag was noticed early on by hardcore shoot-em-up fans.

It is not totally clear if City Connection bought the rights to use SSF, but its source vanishing from GitHub would suggest this is possible. Shima started working on SSF at or around the year 2000, improving it with new versions ever since.

You can watch several Saturn games in action on the Switch (using what is apparently SSF) from YouTube user Stranno. Despite the initial compatibility list on GBATemp, it appears this user got BulkSlash to work after all. But more importantly, it runs Virtual Hydlide. I sadly have yet to find someone test Pebble Beach Golf Links. You know where to find me once this happens.