Previously on Lemmy:
Past Discussions:
Now that our buying guide (or a first draft of it) is done, let’s get back to our usual discussions. This week’s topic is emulators, by request of u/AlmightySnoo. As emulators could not be loaded on iPhones without jumping through many hoops, Android remains the preferred OS for emulation on smartphones.
(Reminder, rule 2 is in effect, so please don’t give out links to ROM sites.)
Now, as we all know, the mobile gaming landscape in 2023 is not great exactly. Most of the games in twr Play Store are designed for frustration instead of fun, littered with microtransactions, timegating, and of course, ads. Even the good games have terrible monitization practices, and there are a lot more bad games than good.
But emulated games are a way to get away from that, and let us remember a time when games on the go are simply games that are fun and nothing else, the nights when you are sitting in the backseat of your parents car with only the glow of your GameBoy and the passing streetlight as you play Pokemon. Nostalgia from a time when we didn’t have grownup things to worry about.
But of course, many emulators didn’t only aim to “emulate” the original console, but to enhance them into the modern age: Save states, rewind, enhanced graphics, texture replacements, easy cheats, touchscreen and gamepads. Things we could only dream of as kids are now reality.
So, please share your experiences with emulation on Android and give out some cool tips and tricks here.
(A special shoutout to RetroArch for having the (dis)honor of staying as one of the most frustrating software that I have ever used.)
Lemuroid https://github.com/Swordfish90/Lemuroid is by far my favourite console emulator on android and its free and open source. Its got quick saves and fast forwarding which is great for Pokemon. It also supports zipped ROMs so no need to unzip anything and it has worked with any ROM hack I’ve tried.
I mainly use it for GB, NDS and 3DS since I usually only play on my phone when I have some time to kill when I’m travelling, but it supports so many other consoles too.
- Atari 2600 (A26) - Atari 7800 (A78) - Atari Lynx (Lynx) - Nintendo (NES) - Super Nintendo (SNES) - Game Boy (GB) - Game Boy Color (GBC) - Game Boy Advance (GBA) - Sega Genesis (aka Megadrive) - Sega CD (aka Mega CD) - Sega Master System (SMS) - Sega Game Gear (GG) - Nintendo 64 (N64) - PlayStation (PSX) - PlayStation Portable (PSP) - FinalBurn Neo (Arcade) - Nintendo DS (NDS) - NEC PC Engine (PCE) - Neo Geo Pocket (NGP) - Neo Geo Pocket Color (NGC) - WonderSwan (WS) - WonderSwan Color (WSC) - Nintendo 3DS (3DS)I’ll have to check that out. Happy with what I’ve been using but always glad to support open source!
Out of curiosity, how does NDS emulation feel on Android? I have a 3DS with Kirby Canvas Curse (underrated game btw) and it’s hard for me to imagine how it would be playable without a stylus.