When I first started getting into the handheld emulation world, I figured it was silly to worry about a device having built-in Wi-Fi. “I’m going to be playing 30-year-old games by myself. Why do I need to have internet on the device?” Or so I thought.

Fast-forward to today, and I can’t help but feel that I’m missing out on a major part of the experience anytime I’m playing a game on a device that isn’t connected to the internet. The reason has nothing to do with OS tweaks or downloads, apps, PICO-8, or even PortMaster — fantastic as all those things are. The reason that I feel a need to be connected while gaming is entirely down to RetroAchievements.

RA_million_milestone

Congrats on a million! – Image c/o RA Discord

RA, as it’s often known, is the killer app that turned a device feature from “nice to have” to necessary; and I think it’s fair to say that a lot of folks out there agree because they just celebrated the milestone of 1,000,000 registered users!

A huge congrats to everyone involved on the team at RA and the thousands of volunteers who make the robust achievements system as fantastic as it is today. RA has a fantastic Discord community where you can learn everything about the exciting work being done to improve all of our retro-gaming lives.

Some Background

For anyone who isn’t familiar, Retro Achievements is a community-maintained project that allows users to track their progress in retro games via an achievement system akin to the trophies and awards you’d find using Steam, PSN, or Xbox Live. Adding achievements to retro games often adds an entirely new level of fun to an experience you may have thought you’d maxed out years ago.

Buster Bros in RetroAchievements

Buster Bros achievements!

Let’s say you played a ton of Punch Out!! as a kid, and you’ve spent the years since telling everyone you were the best fighter Doc Louis trained. Well, now you can prove it with everything from an achievement for a KO on Glass Joe, to speed-running your way through Iron Mike in record time. With over 10,000 titles currently supported from the PS2-era back to Atari, it’s impossible for you not to find a game you love that can now be enjoyed with achievements.

Punch-Out in RetroAchievements

Beginning in 2012 as a pet project of UK games programmer Scott Breen, RA has grown by leaps and bounds since its inception.

Major boosts to RA’s growth over the years came from the release of SNES/Game Boy/GBA/NES support in 2013, N64 in 2017, PSX in 2019, PSP in 2021, Dreamcast/PS2 in 2022 and Final Fantasy XI (HorizonXI)/GameCube in 2024, not to mention dozens of other systems across the years (⁠⁠retroachievements⁠⁠)! RA achievement developers have come up with countless fun challenges for almost 10,000 of our beloved classic games, from the most popular titles to obscure hidden gems. What’s incredible is that RA has maintained this exceptional growth with us now gaining an average of over 30,000 new users each month!

How-To Use RetroAchievements

RetroAchievements Hardcore Mode in RetroArch

Are you hardcore?

So now that you’re familiar with what RetroAchievements is, and you’ve wisely decided that it’s the way forward for you, we’ll need to get it up and running.

  1. Head over to RetroAchievements.org on your PC/mobile and create a new user account.
  2. Navigate to Achievement Settings in RetroArch or your device menu and enter your login credentials.
  3. Select your options – Settings like Hardcore mode will limit your ability to use save states or cheats in games, but achievements will be worth more. I tend to keep hardcore mode turned on unless I’m in a game that will just be miserable without the use of save states.
    Enter your RetroAchievements login within RetroArch

    Enter your RA creds in Retroarch

  4. Try a game or two – When you now load an RA-supported game on your device, you should see some form of pop-up during initialization that you are logged in to the service. From there you can hopefully rack up a few basic achievements and check that your progress is registering with the website.
  5. If you’re having trouble with a certain system, double-check Core Compatibility. RA only works with certain supported emulation cores, but fear not, as most of the popular choices have their bases covered.
  6. Enjoy!

Additional Ways to Use RetroAchievements

The RetroAchievements Widget running in Daijisho

The RA Widget running in Daijisho

As RetroAchievements is largely a community-supported effort, it should come as no surprise that there are a number of community-developed additions you can explore to fine-tune your RA experience.

  • Retro Achievements Mobile: This is an Android client app for the RA website. You can use this to check your achievements, feeds, friends, etc from your Android device.
  • Retro Achievements Tracker: For those who want to get serious about hunting for hardcore achievements, this streaming layout manager can keep all the important stats on-screen.
  • Daijisho Widget: This popular Android launcher has options to use a web API from the RA site to fill a widget within the Daijisho launcher.

Emulators with RetroAchievements Integration

Odin 2 Mini Setup Guide - Folder of Emulators

What if you want to earn RetroAchievements but don’t want to rely on RetroArch to do so? Well, you’re in luck as these are the different emulators that also include RetroAchievement integration:

  • Bizhawk (Multi-System)
  • Dolphin (GameCube)
  • DuckStation (PlayStation)
  • PCSX2 (PS2)
  • PPSSPP (PSP)
  • LibRetro (Multi-System)
  • Meka (Multi-System)
  • FCEUX (NES)
  • Project64 (N64)
  • AppleWin (Apple II)
  • Quasi88 (PC-8000/8800)
  • Snes9x (SNES)
  • VisualBoyAdvance (GB/GBA/GBC)
  • RetroArch (Multi-System)
  • WinArcadia (Multi-System)

Closing Congrats

If you’re unsure if RA is for you, I’d wholeheartedly suggest spending the 5 minutes to give it a try. It’s completely free to join, and who knows, you may even want to get involved in becoming an Achievement Developer yourself!

A big-thanks once again to the RA team and all the volunteers out there contributing to the community to make our emulation experiences that much more special. A million users is a huge milestone, and one well-deserved for something that brings a new level to old games.

What did you think of this article? Let us know in the comments below, and chat with us in our Discord!

This page may contain affiliate links, by purchasing something through a link, Retro Handhelds may earn a small commission on the sale at no additional cost to you.