NES Emulator on Android:
the list with reviews
Learn how to play retro console games on your mobile devices
using NES emulators for Android.
NES emulator on Android would be a good addition to your everyday digital entertainment. Mobile retro gaming is becoming more and more popular not only due to nostalgic feelings of the elderly generation but also because of great favor and respect being expressed by young people. Such a retro experience for them is something like an exotic adventure. Whatever your reason for searching NES emulators on Android is, here you’ll find the list of the best applications to make it happen. (*editors’ personal opinion).
The best of the best emulators list contains:
- RetroArch Android
- Classic Boy
- NES Emu
- Nesoid
- Nostalgia NES
- CastNES
- Retro8
- Retro Game Center
- SNES9X
- ExaGear Emulator
Also, in this article, you’ll find out
- How to get NES roms for Android
- How to play PC games on Android
RetroArch for Android
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RetroArch is an open-source emulator which were built on the famous Libretro interface. It includes quite a big set of emulators, so users can enjoy almost all popular type of consoles, such as Nintendo, Sega, Sony PlayStation, Atari, NEC and MAME Arcade. The list includes NES and the features quite a good quality of the emulators, that’s why it is on top of our list.
Enjoy the features of Exagear Desktop Windows Emulator that make our app really stand out:
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Classic Boy Emulator
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ClassicBoy by Godwin is a frontend which includes GLES/SLES 3D media engine and advanced controllers interface.
One of the most interesting features of ClassicBoy is its gesture mapping for controllers. This is going to be liked by fighting games players. This mode provides 8 swipe directions on each side of the screen and each one can be mapped with its own key. Besides controllers gesturing, there’s also an accelerometer sensor for a better character performance and calibration for adjustment of tilt parameters. All these create a unique gaming experience when a user can play on a screen with no controller elements displayed and act with their single hand only. ClassicBoy includes the emulators of the following particular consoles:
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NES Emu
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This app is an advanced open-source NES emulator based on FCEUX 2.2.3-svn. The app works absolutely on any device with similar or better specs.
NES Emu is a paid application, so for your money, you’ll receive:
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Nesoid Emulator
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This application was abandoned by Libretro in favor of their new project RetroArch (see above). Still, the APK files of Nesoid emulator are available on the Internet on such websites as Sourceforge, Uptodown, Emuparadise etc. So if you really want to play with this earlier product of Libretro, you’ll find the app files there.
The main peculiarity of the emulator was that it used the code of GPFCE, forked from FCEUltra, which is currently known as FCEUX. |
Nostalgia NES app
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There are actually two apps of that kind – Nostalgia.NES Lite (free) and Nostalgia.NES Pro (paid). The main differences between the two are that the Lite version has got advertising ads and users can save or upload their game progress only after watching ads (if the device is offline – these features are disabled). As well as the game rewinding is disabled in Lite.
The main features of the application are the following:
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CastNES Chromecast Emulator
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This application allows playing NES games on your Google Cast device. The app runs well on any smartphone or tablet model and is compatible with almost all NES roms formats. The main peculiarity of the app is that it broadcasts a game to your Google Chromecast device. In this case and your smartphone or tablet are utilized as a full-sized controller.
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Retro8 Emulator
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Retro8 NES Emulator is a paid Android app, which is considered one of the most easy-to-use NES emulators for Android. The community liked the app due to its advanced search system, which allows quick searching and navigating among all the NES games installed on Android device. This is a really convenient thing for those who’s got a bunch of roms on their device.
The other Retro8 app’s features are the following:
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Retro Game Center
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Retro Game Center Android NES emulator helps you discover and play over 15k+ classic retro console games on 15+ most popular game systems of the past. It supports the search for games and roms, screenshots. You can link local roms to a game and play right inside the app. There’s also a bookmark option available to keep a real-time track of what you are playing.
The Retro Game Center NES emualtor offers the following features:
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SNES9X Android NES Emulator
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Actually, this is a SNES emualtor, but it includes NES emulator as well and so the NES roms and games are also supported. SNES9X is an open-source SNES emulator based on Snes9x 1.55 (for slower and older devices a special 1.43 version is available for downloading on the developer’s website). The other games should be supplied by the user. A number of public domain games or/and demos are available at www.pdroms.de. The users may transfer games to their SD cards or other internal storage space and browse them within the app. The supported ROMs formats include .smc and .sfc formats, optionally ZIP, RAR, or 7Z files.
The SNES9X emulator app’s features are:
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NES Roms for Android
First of all, let’s clarify what the roms are. Roms are called the console games or their files (or images) made up in a special format, which allows launching those games on some non-console devices. Basically, there aren’t any specific NES roms for Android or NES games for Android – just simple NES games downloadable form some internet websites.
So, how can we get all those NES games on our Android devices? Well, it depends.
Also, beware that if you’d like to get NES games for free from unofficial websites, you’ll break the copyright law. Though, unfortunately, a brief googling is enough to get a bunch of such websites displayed in front of you. We can only ask you to stay within a legal framework and use only the licensed NES games or roms.
As an additional idea, you can search for the ways of getting roms from the old cartridges, I bet you’ve got some left and forgotten somewhere around your house =).
The hardware, you can use for that is called Retrode (read about it here). The only thing is that we are not sure if this device is still being produced and distributed as all the information about it dates back to 2013 and earlier.
ExaGear Emulator – Retro PC Games on Android
If you like playing old console NES games on Android, you’ll definitely like playing retro PC games on your Android as well! Why not? And the most up-to-date and advanced technlogies are here to help you with that.
I am talking about ExaGear Windows emulator Android app, which can port almost any old and medium age computer games to your Android device. Needles to say that launching classic Windows desktop games Like Starcraft, Fallout, Fallout 2, Diablo 2, Heroes, Hal-Life 2 and many others is currently the most favorable feature of ExaGear. Actually, there’s a list of officially supported games. They were tested and approved by ExaGear’s development team and include the following titles:
- Heroes of Might and Magic 3
- Disciples 2
- Panzer General 2
- StarCraft: Brood War
- Deus Ex
- Unreal Tournament
- Fallout 1
- Fallout 2
- Diablo 2
- Arcanum
- Heroes of Might and Magic 4
- Might and Magic 6
- Might and Magic 7
- Civilization 3
- Caesar 3
- Pharaoh and Cleopatra
- Total Annihilation
- Age of Wonders
- Stronghold Crusader Extreme HD
- Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri
- Divine Divinity
- Jagged Alliance 2
- Neighbours from Hell
Also, we’ve got a big unofficial list of games. They were tested by the community and enthusiastic users, already includes 140+ games and keeps on growing:
- Age of Empires 2
- Command & Conquer: Red Alert – The Aftermath
- Warhammer 40000
- Counter-Strike 1.6
- Unreal Tournament
- Half-Life Day One
- StarCraft: Brood War
- Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds
And much more!
Stay in touch and get notified about the next freshly tested and approved games (within both official and unofficial lists)! Be sure, a lot of cool games are coming soon!
To install ExaGear Windows Emulator push the button below:
How to Play your favorite PC titles via ExaGear
The installation process is really straightforward. In this example, the “Pharaoh and Cleopatra” game is used.
1. Firstly, you’ll need to get the game itself. It’s good if you have a CD/DVD (either an ISO or an installer file) of the game. In case you don’t, make sure you use the legal way of getting an installer file. We strongly recommend you to get it only on official websites like GOG.
2. Transfer the installer file to the “Downloads” folder (just like we’ve done it earlier in the Word Viewer’s tutorial):
2. Then, go to Windows Emulator app on your Android device. Here you should choose “Install new” -> “Pharaoh and Cleopatra”. This game is pre-approved by our tests and is available among other options by default:
3. The app should find the game exe installer file, which you also need to tap on:
4. Tick EULA, tap the “Install” button and wait until the installation is complete:
5. As soon as the installation is complete, you can start playing right after by tapping the “Launch game” button:
Now, you’re all set. The next time you’d like to play the game on your Android device, you should start it right from the main screen of the app in the “Desktop” section.
Also note, that the list of games that can be launched just like this is enormous. You can try your own games using this tutorial. Our team will also keep on testing the most popular ones and releasing our guides and articles on the experience, peculiarities and possible problems solving. So, if you don’t want to miss anything, simply subscribe to our newsletter and be aware of all of our latest news about ExaGear Windows Emulator gaming experience!
To install ExaGear Windows Emulator push the button below:
ExaGear is registered trademark of Eltechs, Inc. Raspberry Pi is a trademark of the Raspberry Pi Foundation. Other trademarks and product names are the property of their respective owners.
