Comment by dmonterocrespo

This is exactly the approach we've been taking with Metal Gear Solid. We’ve been working on a fork of mgs_reversing (which is targeting 100% matching decompilation of MGS Integral) to bring the game natively to microcontrollers: https://github.com/davidmonterocrespo24/mgs_reversing

Instead of high-level emulation, the decompiled C source is compiled directly to Xtensa machine code for the ESP32-S3. We replaced the PlayStation SDK/GPU/GTE with custom software routines, running on a DIY handheld built around a Seeed XIAO ESP32-S3 Sense.

To speed up development without constantly flashing hardware, we run the compiled firmware image directly inside a browser-based hardware simulator CLI (velxio-cli) to verify serial outputs and execution in seconds.

Having 100% matching C code makes native ports to embedded platforms completely feasible without relying on heavy JIT/interpreter glue.