• Runs on Android 12
  • Supports, at the very least, GB, GBA, NES, SNES, Genesis, and Game Gear
  • Takes input from physical buttons
  • Lets you hide on-screen buttons

I have a Sidephone with the Mini Controller keypad and I want to play games on it. There’s a bespoke (unofficial) emulator for the phone called SideRetro, but it only supports GB, GBA, NES, and Genesis, and it’s vibe-coded, so I’d rather use something else. Tried Lemuroid but it doesn’t take input from the physical buttons and can’t hide the on-screen buttons.

Edit: It’s been tough finding a good selection of apps that recognize my physical buttons, let me hide the on-screen buttons, and play what I want. RetroArch seemed to do the trick, but if I hide the on-screen buttons there’s also no way to open the RetroArch menu that I can find.

For now it looks like I’m sticking with SideRetro for the games it can play – even if the dev uses AI to code it, I don’t think it can actually harm my phone, and it’s not like I’m paying for it. Nostalgia GG works great for Game Gear (it has ads, but thankfully only on the launcher) and an option no one mentioned yet for SNES, Snes9x, which turned out to be perfect.

Thanks for all the input, everyone!

  • Redkey@programming.devEnglish
    1·
    3 days ago

    On the SoC in their phone, even N64 through Retroarch is a stretch for many games. PS1 will generally be OK, but I’d still recommend a stand-alone emulator for that, too. Everything earlier than that generation should be fine, though.

    • northertech@fedia.io
      1·
      2 days ago

      I have a retroid 4 pro and it plays PS2 fine. The Qualcomm chips in many phones are more powerful than it’s MediaTek Dimensity.