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5 best SNES emulators for Android
The SNES holds a special place in a lot of gamers’ hearts, but apart from a few titles in the Nintendo Switch online catalog, it can be difficult to find and play most SNES games. Thankfully, there are plenty of really good SNES emulators available to replay classics like Chrono Trigger, Super Mario World, and Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. These are among the most stable emulators on Android, so no matter which one you pick you should have a great experience. Here are the best SNES emulators for Android!
Don’t forget to pair it with one of the best Bluetooth controllers as well! Or double up on the nostalgia with a Bluetooth controller that looks like the old SNES controllers.
The best SNES emulators for Android
Snes9x EX+
Price: Free
Snes9x EX+ has been around for a long time, and it’s been among the best SNES emulators pretty much since its release. It’s open source and has all the basic features you’d want from a SNES emulator. That includes save/load states, on-screen controls, support for .smc, .sfc, and zip files, and support for gamepads. It looks a little old school but works well on pretty much every device. It’s also completely free with no in-app purchases. That makes this an easy recommendation for the best SNES emulator you can download on Android.
John NESS
Price: Free / Up to $4.49
John NESS is an SNES and NES emulator from John Emulators. This replaces the very popular John SNES and John NES apps. The good news is that it works amazingly well for both systems. You get cheats, good rendering quality, high compatibility, save states, customizable digital controls, turbo buttons, fast forward and slow down, and even hardware controller support along with cloud storage support. However, those who already purchased John SNES or John NES (or both) have to purchase the app a second time and that’s making some people upset. In any case, this is easily one of the best SNES emulators for Android. Thankfully, the app is also free with ads if you want to try it out first.
ClassicBoy Pro
Price: Free / $3.99
ClassicBoy is one of the great old emulators. It’s a combo emulator with PlayStation, N64, Game Boy Advance, SNES, and a few others. The SNES support is quite good and everything seemed to work well in our testing. This one underwent a pretty serious redesign and the developer is still working out some of the bugs, but it’s otherwise pretty solid.
Lemuroid
Price: Free
Lemuroid is an all-in-one emulator that uses Libretro cores, similar to RetroArch below. That means it supports a bunch of systems, including the SNES. This one is a bit easier to use than RetroArch. It comes with many cores preloaded, so you just input your ROMs and play. You get the usual features like controller support, save states, and everything else you’d expect. It’s a solid emulator, provided you have the patience to occasionally tinker with the controls. You can get either this or RetroArch, they both function the same. Lemuroid is just easier overall to use in our opinion, but once you get used to either one they’ll work great.
RetroArch
Price: Free
Retroarch Plus is another great all-in-one emulator. It has support for a wide range of systems via Libretro cores, including the SNES. You simply download and install the core you want and you’re off to the races. It includes most of the usual stuff like save and load states, customizable controls, and cheat codes. It also played every game we tested without any issues. The only downside is that it’s a bit difficult for beginners to learn. However, once you learn how it works, you can use RetroArch for a number of game consoles along with the SNES so you only have to learn it once. There are two versions in the Play Store. We recommend the Plus variant since it supports more cores and newer devices.