Emulation is key to preserving the history of video games and making them more accessible, so it's always exciting to see emulators make their way to Android. Citra, an emulator for the Nintendo 3DS, has been available on desktop platforms for years, and now the Citra team has finally released an official Android port.
The Citra team has been working on Android support on and off for years, and various unofficial builds appeared from time to time (with varying degrees of functionality). The new official port borrows code from Dolphin for Android, the Nintendo Switch emulator Yuzu, and other projects. It already has Just-in-Time (JIT) CPU compilation, asynchronous GPU emulation, and other functionality that results in a smooth experience on modern flagship Android devices.
There are also several features unrelated to core emulation that vastly improve the gameplay experience on Android. Games have access your phone's camera, microphone, and accelerometer just like they did on native hardware. Citra can even input text into games using Android's own system keyboard.
Citra currently only works on 64-bit Android devices running Android 8.0 Oreo or higher, with support for OpenGL ES 3.2 or higher. Sadly, the Play Store listing seems to block Chromebooks right now.
