[[2026 Games#^53c076|2026 Games]] A funny thing I’ve begun to notice is that despite originally getting my [[Less Doomscrolling More Silly Lil Tech Toys|silly little tech toys]] for emulation, I've come to use them for just straight up playing Android [[Games|games]] a lot more, at least lately. And I’ve been enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would too. The Google Play store is still absolute ass-cheeks, don’t get me wrong. It's impossible to find anything of quality on the store itself when it keeps pushing mediocre trash to the front of the page since that’s what makes the most money. But if you search in alternative places, like [/r/androidgaming](https://old.reddit.com/r/androidgaming), you can find some pretty good shit. I initially got into [[Warframe]] because the android port runs so well on my [[Thoughts on the Ayn Thor|Ayn Thor]], but I also grabbed **Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown**, a **Legend of Mana** port, a bunch of **SaGa** games, **Slime Rancher**, and more. And more importantly, that’s just the official stuff. What I didn’t realize is that there’s a dedicated community that builds unofficial Android ports of your favorite games too. I have **Deltarune** available to me, **Simpsons Hit & Run**, **Rain World**, **Link’s Awakening**, **Banjo-Kazooie**, **Ocarina of Time**, **Majora’s Mask** **Twilight Princess**, and, if I hate myself, **Hollow Knight** and **Silksong** too. “But Mint,” you may ask. “What makes a source port of **Banjo-Kazooie** so special? Why can’t you just run **Silksong** via GameNative?” The first and biggest reason is that a port of a game tends to run much better than emulating it, which adds a second layer of strain to your android toy of choice. **PoP:LC** runs hot via emulation, but I can play its android port for hours. It leads to a smoother experience overall. But on top of that, Android ports come with upgrades and enhancements. My **Majora’s Mask** run has been stuffed to the brim with QoL changes, from using the D-Pad for items to an HD texture pack to stupid shit like increasing Link’s climbing speed. If I wanted to, I could cheat my through **Silksong** easily thanks to how moddable it is, “get-gudders” be damned. But that easiness has come with a cost — I get sad when a game I want to play *doesn’t* have an Android port. I've become too coddled with convenience. **Look Outside** looks great on my Thor, but it runs like shit via every emulator I’ve thrown at it. It runs an RPG Maker, so it should be possible to port to Android, so I might even try it myself. I still will pull up a [[PlayStation 2]] or [[Nintendo 3DS]] classic, but I’m pretty surprised by how much Android has matured as a legitimate platform for games. It’s great.