Top 10 emulators for Android

For those who lived the NES in its heyday, the 90s of the Super Nintendo vs Megadrive or the first Playstation, emulators are a fabulous redoubt of nostalgia . Being able to play nowadays classic ochobiteros games from a PC emulator, or as in the case of today, from our own Android terminal, is a delight.

Before you proceed, check:

The 10 best game console emulators for Android

Many of the games on these consoles are being reissued and republished nowadays, but if we want to try the original experience, nothing better than installing a good emulator , like the ones we will see in the following list, and spreading its original version.

1- Citra

One of the newest emulators to come to Android. Citra, known for its PC version, is an emulator for Nintendo 3DS that has earned the respect of the entire community for its good work.

It offers great game compatibility, good graphics, and mobile friendly with resolution scaling and texture filtering, gamepad support, and more. Although it is still in early access, it can already be downloaded officially and for free from Google Play.

DownloadQR-Code

Citra Emulator

Developer: Citra Emulator

Price: Free

2- PPSSPP

The most widely used PSP emulator on Android , with more than 10 million downloads and a 4.2 star rating. It is compatible with many games, but everything will depend on the power of our device to get the most out of it.

DownloadQR-Code

PPSSPP – PSP emulator

Developer: Henrik Rydgård

Price: Free

3- Nostalgia.NES

Probably the best emulator for Android of the first 8-bit Nintendo . High compatibility of games and other functionalities such as the customization of virtual controls, support for gamepads, ” rewind ” function , support for cheats, 8 slots for data backup and more.

DownloadQR-Code

Nostalgia.NES (NES Emulator)

Developer: Nostalgia Emulators

Price: Free

4- MAME4droid

Did you think we had forgotten about the arcades? MAME4droid is the most popular emulator of the mythical MAME from the arcades . A port that supports more than 8,000 ROMs of all kinds. It works perfectly with old arcades, but if we want to try more recent games we will need at least a terminal with 1.5GHz or higher.

Among its features it offers native support for NVidia Shield devices and tablets, support for most Bluetooth and USB controllers and gamepads, CRT filters and scanlines, image smoothing from HQx to HQ4x, and much more. An emulator delight.

DownloadQR-Code

MAME4droid (0.139u1)

Developer: Seleuco

Price: Free

5- M64Plus FZ Emulator

M64Plus FZ Emulator is a front end of the open source Mupen64 + emulator. An app with which we can play the ROMs of the Nintendo 64 , and the most used on Android today with more than a million downloads on Google Play and a high rating of 4.4 stars.

Although emulations have never done the Nintendo 64 very well, this app manages to polish up many of the best games on the console. There are games that do not play them and others do them with glitches, but in general the general experience is positive. It is compatible with the GLideN64 plugin and supports 64DD.

DownloadQR-Code

M64Plus FZ Emulator

Developer: Francisco Zurita

Price: Free

6- Snes9x EX +

Open Source project to emulate Super Nintendo games , with a high level of compatibility. A phone or tablet with at least 1.0GHz of CPU power is recommended to function properly. It is recommended to use ROMs in .smc and .sfc format, although it is also compatible with ZIP, RAR, and 7Z files (but they can be slower when the data is compressed).

If you lived through the golden age of 16 bits and still have your cartridges from Street Fighter 2, Mortal Kombat, Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Castlevania and more at home, you should definitely try this great SuperNES emulator for Android.

DownloadQR-Code

Snes9x EX +

Developer: Robert Broglia

Price: Free

7- RetroArch

An open source cross-platform emulator based on the Libreto development interface. It has been becoming quite popular in recent years, and although it still has a long way to go, it looks very interesting and it sure surprises more than one. The developers for their part are giving it their all, with frequent updates every so often, multiplayer mode and more.

The emulator works through cores or programs that we can install to add the systems or game consoles that we want to use – about 80 available today, from Commodore 64, through Dreamcast, Game Gear, PS1, PS2 or Neo Geo-. It even has a Game & Watch emulator!

DownloadQR-Code

RetroArch

Developer: Libretro

Price: Free

8- My Boy! GBA Emulator

One of the best Game Boy Advance emulators for Android, and without a doubt one of the most downloaded. It’s fast, works well with most games and supports most Android terminals on the market. Also accepts GameShark / ActionReplay / CodeBreaker codes.

Until recently, 2 versions of the emulator coexisted: one free and one paid without ads and more features, such as saving / loading, fast forward and even synchronization with Google Drive. However, today only the premium version of the application is available, which implies that we will have to make a payment of about 5 euros to be able to enjoy this excellent emulator for Android of the mythical GBA.

DownloadQR-Code

My Boy! – GBA Emulator

Developer: Fast Emulator

Price: € 4.99

9- SuperNDS

The best Nintendo DS emulator for Android alongside DraStic DS Emulator , with the difference that SuperNDS is completely free. Like most emulators a little more powerful, it requires the use of devices with at least 2GB of RAM and 4-core CPU to function properly (if we have less resources, games usually crash). Supports game files in nds, .zip, .7z and. rar , and has the typical save / save functions and other additional settings. Compatible with Android 5.0 and higher.

DownloadQR-Code

SuperNDS Emulator

Developer: Super Classic Emulator

Price: Free

10- Dolphin Emulator

Dolphin is a well-known desktop emulator for PC (Windows, Linux, Mac OS X). What a lot of people don’t know is that it also has an Android version that works great, and is capable of emulating Nintendo Wii and GameCube games reasonably well .

We are talking about an open source emulator that works under the GNU GPL v2 + license, so all its code is also available on GitHub. This has made it easier to create a good community of volunteers who contribute improvements and optimizations to the project. It is still in beta, although it receives updates almost every month. Today it has a 4-star rating and more than 5 million downloads on Google Play.

DownloadQR-Code

Dolphin Emulator

Developer: Dolphin Emulator

Price: Free

What do you think of this small list of the best emulators for Android? What is your emulator and your favorite ROM?