{"id":215227,"date":"2026-02-19T07:19:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:19:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/19\/offline-retroachievements-comes-to-melonds-for-android-fork\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T07:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T12:25:08","slug":"offline-retroachievements-comes-to-melonds-for-android-fork","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/02\/19\/offline-retroachievements-comes-to-melonds-for-android-fork\/","title":{"rendered":"Offline RetroAchievements comes to melonDS for Android fork"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/melonds-android-offline-retroachievements-support-3642421\/\">Offline RetroAchievements comes to melonDS for Android fork<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/melonds-android-offline-retroachievements-support-3642421\/\">https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/melonds-android-offline-retroachievements-support-3642421\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Publish Date: <a href=\"publish_date]\">2026-02-19 07:19:00<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Source Domain: <a href=\"www.androidauthority.com\">www.androidauthority.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Nick Fernandez \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n<p>TL;DR<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A fork of the melonDS emulator for Android now supports offline RetroAchievements in Softcore mode.<\/li>\n<li>Users must open a game once with an internet connection to cache achievements, after which they can track progress offline and sync later.<\/li>\n<li>Hardcore mode still requires a constant connection, but the update improves stability during temporary internet drops.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>DraStic has long dominated the spot for the best Nintendo DS emulator on Android, but its removal from the Google Play Store last year allowed other emulators to rise and fill the gap. One such emulator was melonDS, an unofficial Android port of the open-source PC emulator, which picked up the baton well by integrating features such as RetroAchievements support. However, this required a constant internet connection for syncing achievements, which is a bit of a pain for users who like to play on the go. A melonDS fork is trying to solve this pain point with offline RetroAchievements support.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Don\u2019t want to miss the best from Android Authority?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img class=\"e_Gh\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" sizes=\"9.375rem\" title=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/google_preferred_source_badge_light@2x.png 676w, https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/google_preferred_source_badge_light@2x-64w-20h.png 64w\" alt=\"google preferred source badge light@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/google_preferred_source_badge_light@2x.png\"\/><img class=\"e_Gh\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" sizes=\"9.375rem\" title=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/google_preferred_source_badge_dark@2x.png 676w, https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/google_preferred_source_badge_dark@2x-64w-20h.png 64w\" alt=\"google preferred source badge dark@2x\" src=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/google_preferred_source_badge_dark@2x.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Developer SapphireRhodonite is known in the emulator community for their melonDS for Android fork<span style=\"box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px\">, which adds external display support, improving<\/span> compatibility with dual-screen Android phones and handhelds. The latest v0.6.0 release of this melonDS for Android fork adds offline RetroAchievements support in Softcore mode.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"e_Gh\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" sizes=\"(min-width: 64rem) 51.25rem, 80vw\" title=\"melonDS for Android Offline RetroAchievements\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/melonDS-for-Android-Offline-RetroAchievements.jpeg 1599w, https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/melonDS-for-Android-Offline-RetroAchievements-64w-36h.jpeg 64w, https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/melonDS-for-Android-Offline-RetroAchievements-1000w-562h.jpeg 1000w, https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/melonDS-for-Android-Offline-RetroAchievements-1536w-864h.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/melonDS-for-Android-Offline-RetroAchievements-675w-380h.jpeg 675w, https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/melonDS-for-Android-Offline-RetroAchievements-300w-170h.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/melonDS-for-Android-Offline-RetroAchievements-1280w-720h.jpeg 1280w, https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/melonDS-for-Android-Offline-RetroAchievements-840w-472h.jpeg 840w\" alt=\"melonDS for Android Offline RetroAchievements\" src=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/melonDS-for-Android-Offline-RetroAchievements.jpeg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>To use Softcore mode offline, gamers will need to open the game at least once with an internet connection, so that melonDS can fetch and cache the achievement set and its conditions. Once this initialization is done, gamers can play the game offline, and their achievements will still be tracked on their device. Periodically, gamers can sync their achievements, either on demand or at boot.<\/p>\n<p>Note that if you launch a game without an internet connection, melonDS will not track or sync Hardcore mode. You will need to remain connected to the internet for Hardcore mode in RetroAchievements, though this emulator release&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/melonds-android-offline-retroachievements-support-3642421\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Offline RetroAchievements comes to melonDS for Android fork https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/melonds-android-offline-retroachievements-support-3642421\/ Publish Date: 2026-02-19 07:19:00 Source Domain:&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":215228,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/MelonDS-Android-Nintendo-DS-emulator-icon-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[70],"class_list":["post-215227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-android","tag-google"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215227"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=215227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":215229,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215227\/revisions\/215229"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/215228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}