You can now play Super Mario 64 natively on Android, no emulator required

Forget Super Mario 3D All-Stars. You can now play Super Mario 64 on your Android phone without the need for an emulator.

The game now has an unofficial native Android port thanks to XDA member VDavid003. In the summer of 2019, Super Mario 64 was successfully decompiled and translated into human-readable C code by a team known simply as a “group of talented individuals.” This code has been available on GitHub for a little over a year at this point, and VDavid003 took this code to create the tools needed to compile the game for Android. 

The package relies on Simple DirectMedia Layer and OpenGL ES 2.0 to run on Android. VDavid003 has created a repo containing everything needed to compile the game on a Windows or Linux PC, which can then be sideloaded as an APK to an Android device. 

XDA also lists some steps that walk through compiling and loading the game directly on an Android phone. This requires downloading a Linux terminal emulator, installing dependencies, cloning the repo, and compiling the APK using your own ROM file. 

Keep in mind that emulating ROMs is still in a very gray area, and you should only use a ROM file that you have dumped from your own personal cartridge. 

Also, we should note that Notebookcheck has yet to test the APK, so we cannot speak to its accuracy, performance, or anything else about it.

What do you think about this port of Super Mario 64? Let us know in the comments.