How to play Pokémon on PC from your own cartridges
There is no native PC port of any Pokémon game, so the answer is an emulator, and the right one depends on the generation. Every emulator below is open source, contains no Nintendo code, and is pinned here to its upstream release with a published hash. The game itself comes from a cartridge you own.
By generation
Generations 1 and 2
Game Boy and Game Boy ColorRed, Blue, Yellow, Gold, Silver, Crystal
A dump of your own cartridge. No BIOS needed.
Generation 3
Game Boy AdvanceRuby, Sapphire, Emerald, FireRed, LeafGreen
A dump of your own cartridge. A GBA BIOS from your own console is optional.
Generations 4 and 5
Nintendo DSDiamond, Pearl, Platinum, HeartGold, SoulSilver, Black, White, Black 2, White 2
A dump of your own cartridge. DS mode runs on the built-in free firmware.
Generations 6 and 7
Nintendo 3DSX, Y, Omega Ruby, Alpha Sapphire, Sun, Moon, Ultra Sun, Ultra Moon
A dump made with your own 3DS. Encrypted dumps need the keys from that console.
Dumping your own cartridges
Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance cartridges can be dumped with inexpensive USB cartridge readers. DS cartridges are dumped from a DS or 3DS running homebrew. 3DS games are dumped on the console itself with homebrew tools, which also export the keys an emulator needs for encrypted dumps. The emulator pages linked above say exactly which files each one expects. Recompiled does not host or link to ROMs, and a dump you did not make from your own cartridge is not something this site can help with.
ROM hacks: Radical Red, Unbound, Renegade Platinum and the rest
Most of what people mean by "popular Pokémon games on PC" are fan-made hacks of the official games, distributed as patch files that you apply to your own dump of the base game. That shape fits this site well in principle: the patch contains the author's work, you supply the Nintendo part, and nothing pre-patched ever changes hands.
They are not listed yet for two concrete reasons. First, their authors publish through file-sharing links rather than release artifacts with stable URLs, so there is nothing to pin a hash against with any provenance. Second, applying a patch in the browser against a fingerprinted base ROM, so that no pre-patched file ever exists on our side, is not built. When both are solved, hacks will appear with the same verified treatment as everything else. Until then, this page will not point you at a download for them.
Questions people ask
- Is it legal to play Pokémon on an emulator?
- Emulators themselves are legal software, and every one listed here is open source and contains no Nintendo code. What you run in them matters: a dump you made from a cartridge you own is the only basis this site supports. Downloading a ROM you do not own is not, and Recompiled never links to ROM sources.
- Which emulator should I use for Pokémon?
- mGBA for Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games (generations 1 to 3). melonDS for Nintendo DS games (generations 4 and 5). Azahar for Nintendo 3DS games (generations 6 and 7). All three are pinned to their upstream releases on this site with published hashes.
- Can I download Pokémon Radical Red, Unbound or Renegade Platinum here?
- Not yet. These are ROM hacks distributed as patches that you apply to your own copy of the base game, which fits the bring-your-own model, but their authors publish them through file-sharing links rather than release artifacts we can pin, and this site does not yet apply patches in the browser. Both have to be true before any hack is listed. Pre-patched ROMs will never be offered.
- What about Pokémon decompilations like pokeemerald?
- The pret decompilation projects are complete and remarkable, but they produce a ROM for the original hardware rather than a native PC port, so they fall outside the listing rule. They are the foundation most modern ROM hacks are built on.
- What about Pokémon Sword, Shield, Scarlet, Violet or the Let's Go games?
- Those are Nintendo Switch games. The major Switch emulators were shut down by Nintendo in 2024, and the listing policy excludes projects that have been shut down by a rights holder, along with their forks. There is no supported way to play them here.