We Finally Have A PlayStation Core Working On The Analogue Pocket

We finally have a working PlayStation core on the Analogue Pocket, but it hasn't happened in the conventional way that you might have thought of. For a while now, I've been playing my favourite GBA and GBC games on the Analogue Pocket and taking advantage of the FPGA to emulate my favourite consoles on the go. But up until recently, there hasn't been a PS1 core available. I've thought a lot about playing games like Resi Evil 2 on the Pocket - it's just nice having all of my favourite games under one transparent orange roof.

The core is called GuardianSoul, and it's been built on the MiSTer PSX core. To be transparent, it's been vibe-coded, with OpenAI Codex and Anthropic Claude. A human programmer has made design decisions and pushed the work in a specific direction, but the AI itself has used the code of the MiSTer PSX, the PS-FPGA GTE, and other projects to create Guardian Soul.

I heard about the PlayStation Core for the pocket and instantly loaded up Pocket Sync to download it. The installation process was simple, with the programme finding all of the files and BIOS needed to get up and running. When it comes to my legally acquired ROMs, I've been uploading them to the 'Common' file in the 'Assets' folder on my Pocket's SD card in their own separate files, and it's worked an absolute treat.

I've loaded up Kingsley's Adventure (an underrated game and one for any Banjo and Zelda fans to check out) and Resi Evil 2 with zero problems, and they've worked great. The same goes for Crash Bandicoot: Warped and Crash Team Racing, and the load up times for games is great too.

I have my reservations about vibe-coded projects, as you well know, but I'm trying to remain level with my view on AI so that I can inform you all of projects in the space and let you decide whether you want to pursue checking them out. Whether you like vibe-coded projects or not, this does work really well, and as I said above, it allows you to have all of your games on one FPGA handheld that allows for super smooth gameplay. I've not noticed my battery going down any faster than usual either from playing a more demanding game than Donkey Kong Country or Pokémon FireRed, which is a plus!

You can grab the files needed to get up and running with GuardianSoul from Pocket Sync or GitHub.