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Call me nostalgic, but retro games are one of my favorite ways to entertain myself, whether on a long flight or during downtime at the end of a long day. There are a few things that help me unwind, like a good old-school JRPG. I’m clearly not alone, given the breadth of retro-emulation handhelds on the market. I tend to use older Android phones for the task simply because they are powerful enough and have long-lasting batteries, and I already tend to have one or a few sitting around.
The problem is that none of these Android phones have an interface that is geared towards a horizontal orientation or gaming. I already have a collection of emulators and ROMs, but every emulator lives in its own interface, and finding the game I want often takes longer than actually playing it. That’s where this front-end, called Play Field Portal, steps in.
It’s not an emulator; instead, it’s a launcher to launch said emulators, but it takes things one step further. It brings everything together inside an interface inspired by my favorite handheld, the PlayStation Portable, and turns any old Android phone into something that feels much closer to a dedicated handheld. While it’s not going to change how you game, it makes the entire experience around getting to your game so much better.
Play Field Portal is an open-source PlayStation Portable-themed Android front-end that lets you launch retro games and native Android apps with ease.