Days after Apple announced that developers could offer retro game emulators, Riley Testut’s Delta app has made its long-awaited debut on the App Store. As the successor to GBA4iOS, Delta is an all-in-one emulator with support for a variety of Nintendo consoles.
At the moment, it’s possible to play NES, SNES, N64, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, and Nintendo DS games on Delta. Each console has its own skin that mirrors the look of the original controller. You can also upload your own custom skin if you want.
Additionally, the developers say more consoles will be added in the future.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. The number of features in Delta is honestly mind-boggling, especially considering how few other options are currently available. There are save states and load states for all of your games, cheat codes for supported systems, syncing between devices, automatic display of box art, the ability to fast-forward in games, AirPlay support, and even local multiplayer for up to four players.
In order to actually play your old games on Delta, you’ll need to add the ROMs manually, but we won’t cover how that works here. That said, Delta also has a helpful FAQ on its website that can get you started (or you can start Googling to figure out more).
Shortly after Apple opened up the App Store to retro emulators earlier this month, a few started to trickle in. One was actually a clone of Testut’s work, another was taken down by its developer within minutes, and the latest is little more than a reskinned website.
None were or are worth putting on your iPhone. For now, it’s Delta or bust, but now that such a compelling option is available, I’m excited to see if anyone can build another game emulator for iPhone that could compete with such a polished and competent product.
