The Android OS is the most favorite platform for playing ROM hacks, and in fact, on our Youtube channel 70% of our readers are Android users.
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Now, if you are new to GBA ROM hacking and wondering how to play ROM hacks on Android this guide is for you.
Before we proceed, it’s important to mention that we do not distribute any original GBA ROMs as it is against our policy to do so. However, you can easily find them online by simply performing a quick Google search.
To enjoy playing hacked ROMs on your Android device, it’s crucial to have the appropriate GBA emulator. Fortunately, you can find numerous options on the Google Play Store, and some of them are even free.
Just make sure you have both a GBA emulator and a GBA patcher app to kickstart your experience.
Android App for playing ROM Hacks
When you download Android apps for playing ROM hacks, you can find them in the Google Playstore. You can download them for free, but to fully enjoy the features, you need to pay.
More guides like this;
- How to Play Pokemon Uranium on Android and PC
- How to Play Pokemon Infinite Fusion on PC & Android
- Pokemon Emulator for Android, iOS, Windows and Mac OS
- How To Play RPG Maker XP Games On Android
Paying is ideal when you want to enjoy the full features of the emulator or app. You can pay to get the features that you need, and it helps the developers of the app improve its functionality and possibly make more apps later on.
My Boy
One of the best apps out there for playing GBA Pokemon games and ROM hacks would be My Boy. This app is one of the best out there because it is easy to use and not to mention that it is safe.
What we like about Myboy;
- A reliable and safe to use emulator
- Fast and smooth gaming experience
- Cheating friendly
- Has an auto rom hack patching feature
You can download the free version, but the paid version can be so much better. It gives you a chance to think about whether or not if you want to pay to use the app as intended.
There is even a tutorial video (How To Play Pokemon ROM Hacks on Android) that we have regarding how you can play and use these apps.
ROM Patcher
If there’s a ROM patcher for Windows OS and Mac OS, Android has it too. ROM Patcher(Currently not available) is a free android app that supports dozen of patching types such as IPS, IPS32, UPS, BPS, PPF, XDELTA1, XDELTA3, DPS, ASM, XPC, DLDI and APS.
Using ROM Patcher, can be ideal to patch any IPS/UPS GBA ROM Hack file to make it work on your GBA Emulator. Patching a GBA ROM Hack with this app is pretty self-explanatory and easy.
John GBA – GBA emulator
John GBA doesn’t have ROM patching feature, unlike My Boy, but it works with patched GBA ROM’s. If you are using this emulator, you can use a ROM Patcher app to patch any IPS/UPS file and play it in your John GBA emulator.
John GBA is also a good emulator for playing Pokemon GBA games on Android. You can read our review for John GBA here.
John GBA comes with free and paid apps, to enjoy zero ads and full features, purchasing this app is highly recommended.
Summary
There are numerous applications available that offer similar functionality to the aforementioned ones. However, for an exceptional experience in playing hacked GBA ROMS, My Boy is what we most recommend.
A combination of ROM Patcher and John GBA is a good choice. Give it a try now and if you have any questions, feel free to leave a message in the comment section below.
Hi
Hello 👋
When I load up the game and get the hit start screen, it just loads a white screen. I can hit L and R to bring up the help but that’s it. Has anyone gotten around this problem?
bro there is no free version of my boy only the paid version
also is john GBA emulator good?
Hi, yes John GBA emulator is a good alternative GBA emulator for My Boy paid version. Yes, it looks like they removed the free version of My Boy.
Lol i think they removed the free version for my boy is because u made a video explaing about the multi liner thing
I got this trick from a commenter here and took several months before I decide to create a tutorial out of this information. But there must be another reason why they removed the free version.
Yes from personal experience it works out just fine
im pretty sure its called “my old boy free”
I downloaded the rom, and the patch, changed all the names like the emerald.zip into a emerald.gba then changed the hack from hack.zip to hack.ips in my file manager. I’m on myboy and it’s set to auto patch and my emulator just opens a normal emerald game without the patch. Help pls
I tried the room patcher and I get an error saying “Ips: file opening error”
Yea im having the same problem as you
Red is stronger than ash and this version are great
Downloaded and patched. Run the new rom and I just get a blue frozen screen if I use the Ignore Checksum Errors option. However If i don’t use it, it won’t patch the rom at all because of the error listed in the patcher.
This patcher must be useless now and need an update.
If you are talking about the ROM Patcher app, then yes, it is maybe outdated and needs some more improvement. Try using My Boy app, but In my experience sometimes it won’t work, if that happens to you I would suggest switching to your PC and patch the game using Lunar IPS patcher.
Can someone tell me step by step how to do this??? I’m confused. I downloaded emerald, downloaded the patch and the ROM patcher but I can’t patch the files.
You should download the original rom and the patch filrle. Then patch it by ROM Patcher.
How to do this for iOS?
Raicasa
Downloaded this hack, couldn’t find it in my boy. Downloaded emerald tried to patch with the mentioned Rom patcher there was an error because the file was zipped. I unzipped the emerald Rom and still can’t patch this thing. Anyone can help me play the Rom hack?