If you feel nostalgia about the old games, you would probably want to play them on your modern device. Also, if you love retro games, how could you not want to play them on your Android devices. You could only play retro games by installing the ROM on original hardware or by emulating the games.
Thankfully, many developers who love retro gaming have developed Android and other operating systems applications to emulate hardware and run game ROMs.
The emulator application will simulate the hardware to support and run game ROMs. Here in this article, we will mention some of the best emulators for android for playing retro games, briefly going through some of the key features so you can choose which one you would like to install next.
John NESS
John NES is the best emulators for android to run for playing NESS games because it provides a clean-looking user interface for game controls and other touch screen buttons to control the game. Moreover, you can utilize your Android Bluetooth feature to connect to a game controller.
However, you are limited to only using Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Nintendo Entertainment System game ROMs, and you will face issues if you try to run any cheats. You can get the John NESS app directly from the Google Play Store, it’s free to download and install, but there is a monthly plan to aces more features.
Emubox
EmuBox is also another best emulators for android which is available in Google Play Store, and it’s been in the marketplace for a long time. It was released a long ago when there were very few emulator apps for Android. The application interface will give you the classic material look, touch button, and every on-screen button is a solid color.
Moreover, you can take a screenshot of the game, save up to 20 times for each ROM you play. Mudbox can emulate a plethora of hardware of old gaming consoles. Hence you can play Nintendo Entertainment System games, PS1, GBA, and other games. Those who would like to play using a controller can connect the controller via Bluetooth and play. However, there are compatibility issues with some controllers.
My Boy!
My Boy! It is the option for those looking to play GBA games and wants features like running cheat codes. However, the most well-known quality of My Boy is that it saves game data at your Google Drive storage. It removes any restrictions on how many times you can keep the game while playing.
However, you won’t get features like sensors, tilt or motion detection, cheat codes, and speeding up the game on the free version. Though it seems like you would be missing plenty of features in the free version, it is not the case; you will have enough elements to enjoy playing retro games, you can use a game controller, take screenshots, and support for all GBA game ROMs.
Dolphin Emulator
Dolphin Emulator only emulates Nintendo GameCube and Wii hardware on your Android device, available in Google Play Store; it enables you to connect to a game controller via Bluetooth.
The touch screen button of the Dolphin Emulators is significant, and you cannot hide them. The Dolphin emulator is the best application for Android, the developer updates the app frequently, and there are a few chances you get any bugs.
ePSXe on Android
Originally The developer developed the ePSXe app for PC to emulate PlayStation hardware to run PlayStation game ROMs.
However, the app was later developed for Android devices; using ePSXe, you can load PlayStation game ROM and play it with additional features like keyboard customization, game controller support, and other basic features like saving game state. ePSXe also has a split-screen feature to support up to four players, and you could also load the ePSXe game data from your PC to your android device to resume the game.
My Old Boy!
For those who want to emulate Game Boy and Game Boy Color games on their Android device, My Old Boy is the best emulators for android option to go. You can install the app from the Google Play store.
However, you will have Ads in the free version. Features like cheat codes, an external game controller, camera, and printer emulation will be available in the app's free version.
Uae4arm
Uae4arm, also known as the Amiga emulator, is one of the best emulators for android for 16-bit games. The emulator can run any Amiga game on your Android device and emulate hardware like Amiga500, a 4000T, and CD32.
All the games will not run as expected; you might have to manually configure the app to run an amiga game smoothly, therefore use the Uae4arm’s granular configuration settings.
PizzaBoy GBC
PizzaBoy GC is another well-known, feature-rich emulator app supporting all Game Boy Classic or Color ROMs. No matter how old your hardware is, the app guarantees to run any game in 60 frames per second.
Even more, along with screenshots, you can make an animated GIF of the game. You will have total control over the on-screen game control buttons; you can change the size and position.
GBA.emu
You will find the GBA.emu app a bit unique from the other emulators because GBA.emu doesn’t require a ROM to run games. It has an inbuilt library.
However, you could import ROM or library even in TAR, RAR, 7z file formats and configure every aspect of the application. The app can emulate almost all the popular retro gaming hardware.
MAME4droid
Using MAMEdroid, you would play arcade games; you could install the application from Google Play Store. The applications also allow users to connect to iON’s iCade and iCP external arcade controllers.
Due to all the new modern features like screenshots, keyboard customization, playing an arcade title in MAME4droid is the best experience.
RetroArch
RetroArch is an all-in-one-emulator application for PC and Android devices, and it could emulate all the major gaming platforms. However, you must use your gaming ROMs to run a game. Using RetroArch, you could emulate games for CD, Neo Geo Pocket Color, Virtual Boy, Nintendo 64, Nintendo DS, and Atari 2600.
RetroArch gives you complete control over every configuration; you could change the theme, the color of the accent, cores, import, and export ROMs, change keyboard shortcuts, keyboard buttons, and much more.
DraStic DS Emulator
The DraStic DS Emulator is another best emulators for android that can run the games in higher resolution. Thus you can play Super Mario in 4K. It saves the game state to your Google Drive and also has Bluetooth controller support. Lastly, the app provides a list of cheat codes which could be very handy for some gammers.
Redream
Redream is one of the Dreamcast emulator available on Google Play Store, the emulator guarantee to run games in higher resolution for better clarity. The emulator is compatible with all the retro games and can run every game at full speed.
More Emulators for Retro Gaming
Some more emulators apps couldn’t make it to the top 13 list. Therefore we would like to mention a few more emulator apps that are well known and have similar features to the previous apps mentioned here. The following emulators that you should get for retro gaming are as follows.
- PPSSPP PSP Emulator
- SuperRetro16
- MagicDOSBox for PC
- M64Plus FZ emulator for Android
- Snes9x EX+ Android
- Citra Emulator on Android
- DosBox Turbo for Android
- Lemuroid Emulator
