TL;DR
- Dolphin is adding achievement support to its GameCube emulator with the help of the RetroAchievements project.
- Over 100 GameCube titles already have achievements defined for them, with more coming.
- Android support isn’t ready right out of the gate, but is on the way.
Console emulators and smartphones go way back; what’s better than having an entire library of classic games in your pocket for when the nostalgia strikes? Over the years, they’ve gone from “good” to “crazy impressive,” and with the help of some software called Dolphin, even complex 3D GameCube games run beautifully on our phones. Now Dolphin is in the middle of delivering its users a really nice modern-day tweak to their emulation experience, in the form of support for gaming achievements.
Dolphin is pulling this off with the help of RetroAchievements, a site that works with emulator devs to create achievement sets for old games. Then the emulator watches game memory to verify completion, and lets you track your progress on the RetroAchievements site. This is the first time it supports GameCube titles, and is off to a big start with compatibility for achievements in about 100 games.
Gamers can browse that list and go after specific achievements, or just play casually and see what they hit. And since emulators offer plenty of opportunities to, well, cheat, there’s even a “hardcore” mode that locks out achievements when you’re using features like save states or slow-mo.
If you're an Android user looking forward to RetroAchievements, don't worry - it will happen. We just can't promise when yet.
Right now, Dolphin is introducing achievements on the PC, and from the dev’s account, it’s been a long, slow process getting everything working right behind the scenes. Somewhat as a consequence of that, Android support is still in the works. The good news is that it’s not any issue of processing power or memory access, but UI conflicts and wonky network code — still annoying issues to track down, but nothing that can’t be handled. In fact, they explicitly acknowledge Android users and this extra wait — it’s a matter of “when,” not “if.”
What about Wii games and some achievements for them? It doesn’t sound like there’s any reason that shouldn’t be able to happen, either, but right now the project is focused on fleshing out RetroAchievements for GameCube before tackling anything bigger.
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