Is a V Smile emulator a thing? Or do I actually have to buy the console?

It kind of exists, I think it’s on MAME or something

It does exist in Mame, though I use MessUI (which is the same as Mame). You just download the V.Smile BIOS, then the game rom and play it. There is one other emulator but's not as good as Mame, and I forgot the name of it. Emulation of the console is really good as of now, plays most games.