Over the weekend, Libretro updated the Beetle Saturn core for its RetroArch emulation platform, bringing with it support for running Saturn games on Android devices.
Beetle Saturn is the Mednafen emulator ported to RetroArch’s Libretro platform, which runs a variety of retro console emulators within its framework.
The new update ports the latest version of Mednafen, version 1.29, to Beetle Saturn.
It’s the first major update in years — Beetle Saturn had been using Mednafen 1.22.2, which originally released in April 2019. You can read the litany of updates from 1.22.2 to 1.29 on this Pastebin page.
Libretro said the APK for the Android version of RetroArch needs to be downloaded directly from their website because the version on the Google Play store is outdated, having run into rules compliance roadblocks.
The release has at least one prominent issue — Saturn games in the CHD format won’t run on Android. Time will tell if that gets fixed in a future update.
Danthrax is a contributor to the Shiro Media Group, writing stories for the website when Saturn news breaks. While he was a Sega Genesis kid in the ’90s, he didn’t get a Saturn until 2018. It didn’t take him long to fall in love with the console’s library as well as the fan translation and homebrew scene. He contributed heavily to the Bulk Slash and Stellar Assault SS fan localizations, and has helped as an editor on several other Saturn and Dreamcast fan projects such as Cotton 2, Rainbow Cotton and Sakura Wars Columns 2.
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