So, as far as emulation goes-
I've got an i5 and like 16g ram, I can Force it to throttle at 98-100% and much faster, even though left to its own devices it holds at 60%. There's a frame skip or two on VBA-M, but for the most part it's okay, I can get around the speed.
The issue I run into is Sprite layers- either the info bar is onscreen, or Shantae/enemies/pickups are. Never both at once. I've tried all 4? video plugins included, tweaking with settings, etc- anyone have a pre-setup config they'd like to share? I'm puzzling over this, and while I do like a good puzzle, I'd really rather play the game.