ArcEmu - Watch Emulator Game Reviews

what if. i think it would be cool if you could use your phone as the controller, and your watch as the display, PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF THIS IS EVEN POSSIBLE

Fun easy to use emulator. It’s defiantly made bored time at work more fine

Good App. Works as advertised, compatible with controller on phones and the save states sync with my watch.

iCloud feature is amazing. My favorite part about this is that I can seamlessly load save states between my iPhone and iPad.

Get this for classic rpg’s on your watch. This is great for turn based games like pokemon and finial fantasy where you can play them on your watch in like 5 min increments. I just hope they add the ability to sync saves between phone and watch. Edit: this review was already 5 stars but after your reply this app is perfect!

better battery, more crashes. runs smoother and consumes less battery but now i encounter random crashes and freezes occasionally that i didn’t before

Good. It’s pretty good. I only wish it could also play Nintendo DS games and other stuff

There is no way to use a game shark. If there was a way to use a game shark for cheats with this it would be so much better and more then possible to receive a 5 star rating all things considered it’s one of the only emulators for iOS so big plus already

It’s legit!!. I have always been skeptical of IOS GBA emulators on the App Store because they never seemed to work. This one does. Super clean and customizable UI, runs roms smooth as butter. Well worth the price

Love this for my watch. beautiful interface, my only question is is there a way to upload save data into the app?

Awesome!!!. I’ve always wanted to see an emulator run on a smart watch, so I want to thank the team of ArcEmu for making this a reality. Playing games on a smart watch is inherently not the most convenient way to play games (i.e. playing one handed, small screen), but I think the ArcEmu Team have done their very best to make it as convenient as possible given the limitations. I also love the added settings (i.e save/load states, volume controls, etc). ArcEmu is the only smart watch emulator, I know of, that exists right now, so that alone, makes me grateful.

Truly exceptional but needs tweaks. This is an insanely cool concept to be able to play game boy and game boy advance games on your watch. But to be usable, it needs a few improvements. I'd love it if you could swipe to hit two buttons, like pressing right for Mario and swiping up onto A to jump. Right now, a new tap is required for any distinct action. In addition, volume controls would be great. Edit: thanks for the reply! My suggestion with swiping is more so just to allow rollover between the right and A buttons, like how it is between the up and down dpad buttons now. Edit 2: Yes, overall I think it's intuitive to allow swiping button presses on any button. More freedom that way. The buttons are quite large so accidental swipes should be a minimum. That allows games like Mario to be played (the new crown button remap option works well there too).

Good start!. Would love to see different overlays, opacity options, more options in general. Good job!

Awesome Emulator. This emulator is awesome. Only thing is I wish there was a way I could connect and battle my friends for the Pokemon games.

It works!. This emulator works well for the GBC games I’ve tried. The cross-save between your phone and watch are what makes it legitimately good. Two suggested features down the road: - Fast forward functionality - Ability to change the control layout on the watch, or ability to zoom and get more screen real estate As it stands, the game screen is really small. It honors the default aspect ratio, which doesn’t translate great for the watch screen.

Love the Simplicity. Amazing application, finally a real app I can use that is supported by Apple Store and it works really well! My only issue is there is no speed up or slow down function (that I could find). If these were added it would make some games a lot less grueling 😂

Great Emulator!. This works amazing for GBA. I love how simple the controls are, and how easy it was to import games and save files. It is easy to save game states and transfer them between iPhone and Watch. I also love being able to use the game in portrait and landscape. This is the emulator I was dreaming of, thank you! Well worth the money.

Great app for the watch. The emu runs everything I’ve tried without issue on a watch se.

Noice. Well done on this app playing GBA games on my Apple Watch is a flex for sure.

Best Dev. This team is so great. They constantly update and improve their apps for quality of life. In this newest one they even got rid of the irritating “same boy” boot screen. It saves a few seconds on each game start. Also when troubleshooting the dev replies in under an hour. Wonderful guy.

A refreshing emulator!. I found this from Reddit and the dev seems really nice. Easy to install, add roms, and transfers to Apple Watch easily!! So many possibilities, and I highly recommend! Best $2 spent in a while

Very Cool Em!. This emulator app is a gift from God! I’ve been waiting for iPhone to come through with something like this my whole life. Now it’s here and then some! I can’t wait to see what more it can do going forward! Thanks devs!!!

Awesome app. Probably has to be the best emulator out there. Hands down!! Controls are responsive. And the only thing I keep asking myself is where has this emulator been when i was in high school lol. Nice job devs!

GBA on Apple Watch. Works perfectly on my Apple Watch, I’m gonna be playing a lot more Pokémon

I love the portable possibilities!!. I just need a setting to change the volume slider with the Digital Crown in game as an option alongside the control ones so I don’t have to back out to the settings when my watch starts blasting lol. Otherwise this is perfect companion app for the watch!!

I have no words.. My inner child’s heart is beating out of its chest. This seems like a dream come true. Everyone involved in the making of this app deserves the world. Low key playing Pokemon in a boring working meaning hits different lol

Fantastic. Today I played a homebrew RPG on my watch and it was great. The controls were well done and everything worked as expected. I am shocked at how well this works and I believe it shows that real games can be done on the apple watch.

This app shows great promise.. I initially had trouble installing this app but the developer helped me via email. The app runs surprisingly good in an Apple Watch. This is perfect for when I can’t take my phone into secure areas and I have a few min here and there to kill. The kid in me is amazed I can play Nintendo on a watch.

Instantly turns your Apple Watch into a gaming powerhouse. I’m incredibly impressed with how well I’m able to emulate gameboy and gameboy advanced games on my Apple Watch. It’s amazingly simple with this app to add roms from your phone and they play impressively well on such a small screen. You would be surprised how well you can view these games on such a small screen and fit in the controls as well. Some games that require a lot of quick button pressing and reaction time might not be best on the watch app but I highly suggest giving games which allow for more reaction time such as turn based strategy, and rpgs a try on this. For instance any of the Pokémon games would be great on this. The price is unbeatable for the ability to add vastly better games on your Apple Watch than any that exist on the App Store.

Amazing. The developer responded to me on Twitter saying he'd have apple watch series 3 support up soon. Had it updated within a few days and now I'm having a great time playing my games. Now I need a bigger apple watch

Works well on watch and phone. It’s definitely worth $1.99 us. If you’re hesitant but are looking for an emulator on your phone it works really well. It is really only good for turn based or simple games on watch, since the watch doesn’t have dual touch capability. Save states are saved to both so you can almost seamlessly transition between the two. There is some lag at times but it’s slight and momentary. Also it isn’t very customizable or advanced in terms of customization. Which makes it great for people not used to emulation, but limiting to people who like tweaking the setup. Love it, overall.

Never Thought I’d See the Day. I’ve been waiting forever for a game boy emulator to hit the AppStore. Being able to play all of my childhood games has been a real treat! If only there was a better and more comfortable way to use the L and R buttons for GBA games when using the touchscreen but I get it’s a limitation. You’re awesome for bringing this to us Apple users!!

Wouldn’t Recommend for Musicians. The audio on the sample channel sounds wrong. I’m a chiptune musician and wanted to use this for working with lsdj, but the sample channel has an added waveform whenever it’s triggered that makes it so you can’t hear anything on that channel like it’s supposed to sound. A good example to show what’s wrong can be found with the home brew rom “amenizer.” Actual hardware and every other emulator I’ve tried all you can hear is drums, but on this app there’s an added high pitched screech.

Finally. Hopefully the first step towards more emulators on Apple products. So excited for this although it’s only Gameboy games right now. I haven’t tried it yet but the fact it’s also able to be on watches is insane. I love it.

Beyond real. This is completely amazing! Never would’ve thought this would be available on watch and work flawlessly. Just get it!

Let me be honest. If you game and don’t have this on any of your devices then you are missing out on the one app I use the most everything old school they folks got their CHIT together 😎

Fantastic emulator!. I’ve been hoping to see someone include the mGBA core since emulators were announced and that alone was enough for me to buy this. My only request is fast forward support and this can be a true 5/5 emulator!

Very cool app, but doesn’t allow importing .sav. I think this is definitely a very cool idea and it works well . I was just disappointed to find that it does not allow importing .sav files. It says the file type isn’t supported, so you would need to start all your games from scratch.

Please add snes. Omg this is awesome playing on my watch is a freaking dream. Plz add full screen support so I can play on Bluetooth controller on my watch 🥹…… ps add snes plz

Actually kinda goated. This emulator is hella good, only thing I’m upset about is no series 2 support. Is that even possible by chance?

Emulator for the watch!. Alright we have arrived into the future because now I can play street fighter on my wrist and super Mario world on my wrist which didn’t think would be possible; we must now develop even more emulators such as MAME and definitely Sega! This app rocks buy it now I can testify that it plays super Mario on your wrist and the game music plays well too!

No save transer/backup. I downloaded this hoping i could take my saves from my watch onto my phone and possible onto my computer to be able to eventually put them on my actual game carts for the games i own, so i could take the creatures caught in one and move them to another but there is currently no way to do this no matter what i have tried. I hope this gets added as a feature in the future until then i have to give it one star.

It really works. I can’t believe I waited 50 years to play the Game and Watch Parachute game on my watch. I can see myself losing a lot of time playing this. The volume is in the arc menu. Be warned the medium level is LOUD. And it doesnt save automatically- so you need to Save State. This works better for me when the watch is turned inside to where your pulse is taken. I’m looking forward to experimenting more with this.

Arc Emu. First of all, thank you! It is great to finally have an emulator on my watch. There are unfortunately not many games provided by Apple. Of course gameplay is partially very difficult or impossible, so it would be great to have actionreplay/ GameShark function to add cheats, so you actually stand a chance of continuing some games. Is this something you could incorporate? Thanks!

GBA emulator is pretty good.. Does exactly what it says in a nice looking minimal package, I don’t use my Apple Watch much but playing GBA on it is extremely novel.

Great Watch Emulator. Playing turn based games on my watch is the bomb! Great for killing idle time.

What more could you want. Any game that you could ever want conveniently in your pocket. So far enjoying some radical red on the go.

Cheat codes and DS??. Love the app, will you allow us to add cheat codes to the gba games? And will there’s be a DS emulator for the iPhone soon??

It’s perfect. A few days ago I was going to write a review asking for a fast forward and yall added it before I even could ! The interface customization is amazing the whole app is a chefs kiss

Good emulator. This a good emulator for all intents and purposes and its ability to be played on the Apple Watch really bumps it up. My only current complaint would be if you could add multi touch support for the Apple Watch companion app. I’ve noticed that I am unable to push the arrow keys and the A of B buttons at the same time. A small thing that makes a big difference in some games. Thx in advance and keep up the great work!

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Fully functional. Excellent emulator first of its kind on Apple Watch thank you. I hope that there can at least be the option to have game boy games full screen with the buttons slightly smaller as there’s plenty of space for them.

No multi touch support. Multi touch support not available, which makes it impossible to play games. Please update and fix!

Amazing Emulator for Apple Watch. Thank you so much!! It really worked! I got the game I want and thanks for helping me out. You responded very quick to my email and I appreciate that thank you very much for helping me. Only problem is that the controls are hard to press but I know it’s a limitation for the Apple Watch, and Multitouch is not there which makes the controls harder. However, this is an amazing app and I would recommend this app for anyone who wants an emulator for the Apple Watch. Once again thank you so much.

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Awesome project!. I have been looking for a pokemon game for my Apple Watch, but didn't find what I was looking for. This is perfect! Could there be an option to make it "always on" so that the watch screen doesn't turn black (off) if I move my wrist? Thank you!!

Absolutely amazing. I got a new Apple Watch Series 9 and thought to myself, what if I could play games on it. Did some googling, found a video, ended up here, and boy was I ever happy when the thing worked flawlessly. Keep it up

Feature request. Please allow for cheats. I would like evolve my Kadabra but have no way to other than to modify the save on my computer. I would also like to have the option of a joystick on the watch. Otherwise tremendous product.

Amazing. Such a great emulator, games look and run great on the watch and phone. Only thing I’d like to see is a save state history… I am playing rpgs and wanted to go back to a decision I made a few hours ago.

Missing some features. Would be great if it had like a stretch to screen option for iPhones as well as an option to put cheats. Fantastic emulator anyway.

Take my money. I downloaded this app thinking it was gonna be a gimmick. But it’s well thought out. The game progress syncs between the watch and phone seamlessly. My only ask is for a 2X or 3X speed option if it’s possible. Way to go devs! Excited to see more features in the future 👍

Amazing!. Pretty awesome to have gba golf games like ESPN on my watch. Works surprisingly great

Ohh. Moi y marche pas comment jfait pr jouer

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Transfer to Watch doesn’t work. The option to transfer the rom to the watch is always greyed out

The best. Best retro game emulator on the App Store. Main requests to keep it that way are to add an option to use my Mac’s keyboard as controls when I run it on my Mac, and more systems. Thank you for making this!

It simply works.. Super intuitive, and does absolutely everything you could need it to. Undoubtedly the best.

Cool on Apple Watch. Could use the ability to easily keep multiple save files. Could also use a way to arrange the buttons on the screen so they are out of the way of the picture.

Beyond real. This is completely amazing! Never would’ve thought this would be available on watch and work flawlessly. Just get it!

Outstanding!. This amazing I can play just about as many games as I can download. I can use it on my watch as well this is great!!

Very fun and works perfectly. GBA emulator for Apple Watch is absolutely wild concept but it is very fun and convienient. I recommend playing games like kurukurukururin because playing games like Minish cap and link to the past is kinda hard

It works. It’s cool and it works. I haven’t had an issue playing GB/GBC or GBA. The watch app works great too. Worth the buy even if it’s just on impulse. No buyers remorse.

Awesome Emulator. This emulator is awesome. Only thing is I wish there was a way I could connect and battle my friends for the Pokemon games.

Works great! Could use more watch customization.. Would love to see more button placement. The direction buttons being all at the bottom doesn’t feel as natural as what I saw in the photos on the AppStore.

Good to pass time with. Looks really good on the Apple Watch runs great as well just wish I can emulate other types of devices since you gotta pay for it

Awesome dev. I had an issue with this emulator where the triggers would not work properly. Messaged the dev and it was fixed next update. Awesome work my guy

Similar to a GitHub issue but whatever lol. I’d like you to add 7z support and the ability to add multiple games at once. Please, it’d be nice.

Really cool and unique!. While very situational, the fact that you can use your Apple Watch to play games is so cool! I hope they implement a GameShark feature soon.

Perfect. Great emulator works great on most Apple Watches. I used it mainly on a titanium series 3 and it works excellent. Also very easy to use and upload roms. Worth the 2$ for it

There is no way to use a game shark. If there was a way to use a game shark for cheats with this it would be so much better and more then possible to receive a 5 star rating all things considered it’s one of the only emulators for iOS so big plus already

Ui. Very first time user friendly and the software runs well

Fantastic emulator!. I’ve been hoping to see someone include the mGBA core since emulators were announced and that alone was enough for me to buy this. My only request is fast forward support and this can be a true 5/5 emulator!

Awesome app. Probably has to be the best emulator out there. Hands down!! Controls are responsive. And the only thing I keep asking myself is where has this emulator been when i was in high school lol. Nice job devs!

as of Dec 20, 2025; app does not load on watchos26 at all. yea, sadly app doesn’t work at all on my aw10 with watcho26.2 on it. hadn’t used in a while so tried to play a game and app won’t even stay open. just tries to open on watch and then closes.

Oh, it’s so good!. No crashing, no hidden fees, no ads, just massively satisfying UI and pure functionality. I am genuinely impressed with good this thing feels to play games with <3

Good but... I like it. I just wish I can be able to enable cheats and I wish the controls were a little bit better but overall pretty good emulator

10/10. I was bored so i convinced my mom and she let me and i can play at recess at school while im on the swing i am gonna recommend my friend about this

Awesome. Just so you know you can download Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon shows and watch them on your watch

A fantastic little emulator!. I love that this exists and it works flawlessly. A way to maximize the game on the watch would make it even better!

Great, but…!. App runs great on iOs which is kind of a given, but runs pretty smooth on the Apple Watch Ultra 2. Would be great to have bluetooth controller support on the watch as well.

Worth 5 stars but…. It’s a great emulator. It does what it says. But there are some issues. Not being able to push more than 1 button on the watch at a time makes a lot of games unplayable.

Love this for my watch. beautiful interface, my only question is is there a way to upload save data into the app?

Best $2 spent!. Please don’t even hesitate. I would rebuy this app in every multiverse there is. Seriously. Multiplayer support. Great user interface. Customize controls. Runs on my Apple Watch!? LETS GO!

Good, but primary selling point doesn’t work.. Good emulator, but for some reason won’t transfer games to my watch, which is the whole reason I bought it.

Needs to be option to invert scroll direction. Crown scroll direction reversal would make this a perfect watch emulator

A refreshing emulator!. I found this from Reddit and the dev seems really nice. Easy to install, add roms, and transfers to Apple Watch easily!! So many possibilities, and I highly recommend! Best $2 spent in a while

WORTH THE 2 BUCKS. I really like how you can play this one your watch and load your save files on any device it’s definitely worth the 2 bucks

Good start!. Would love to see different overlays, opacity options, more options in general. Good job!

It’s legit!!. I have always been skeptical of IOS GBA emulators on the App Store because they never seemed to work. This one does. Super clean and customizable UI, runs roms smooth as butter. Well worth the price

It really works. I can’t believe I waited 50 years to play the Game and Watch Parachute game on my watch. I can see myself losing a lot of time playing this. The volume is in the arc menu. Be warned the medium level is LOUD. And it doesnt save automatically- so you need to Save State. This works better for me when the watch is turned inside to where your pulse is taken. I’m looking forward to experimenting more with this.

Amazing. I have never seen a emulator for games on the App Store. Let alone an emulator that works with a watch. 10/10 app.

Great and just like the original. It is the exact same as regular game boys and for the price is beautiful. I would pay $50 if I knew it was this good

Love it. Love this emulator, just wish it was a little easier to save, which it already is😅 but that’s my only complaint

What more could you want. Any game that you could ever want conveniently in your pocket. So far enjoying some radical red on the go.

Worth it. Being able to play GBC and GBA games on your watch is a game changer. Worth getting and already sunk over a dozen hours in this app

Love it. I just love the fact that you can play Pokémon on your wrist, I believe it has controller support but overall it is a fun concept for sure

I have no words.. My inner child’s heart is beating out of its chest. This seems like a dream come true. Everyone involved in the making of this app deserves the world. Low key playing Pokemon in a boring working meaning hits different lol

Let me be honest. If you game and don’t have this on any of your devices then you are missing out on the one app I use the most everything old school they folks got their CHIT together 😎

Amazing. You can play on your phone, too, and save state on either platform. But the watch interface is incredible

Zero complaints. Worth the two bucks, it’s exactly what it should be. Simple emulator, easy interface AND being able to play on my Watch?! YES!

So much fun!!. So happy to be able to play the games from my childhood at any time!!! Really fun and a staple of my phone!

Sound issues fixed. I’ve been waiting for this update, GBA sound is fixed! I love this app so much

Great app for the watch. The emu runs everything I’ve tried without issue on a watch se.

what if. i think it would be cool if you could use your phone as the controller, and your watch as the display, PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF THIS IS EVEN POSSIBLE