How to Play PlayStation 2 [PS2] Games on Android
PlayStation 2 (PS2) was one of the most popular game consoles in the world. Because so popular...
On March 4th, 2000 ago, the PlayStation 2 was officially launched in Japan. On the first day of the launch, many stores reported they had run out of stock. Even some stores had opened sales in the early morning and found an endless queue of prospective buyers.
That same year, on October 26th, PS2 was officially launched in America. As in Japan, the PS2 supplies also run out quickly and become highly sought-after items. As mentioned on eBay, people were willing to pay $ 1,000 for 1 unit PS2!
Then on November 24th of that year, PS2 was officially launched in Europe, as in America, the availability of PS2 for Europe was also limited, but it did not reduce the interest of people to order first.
Now, the PS2 has been considered obsolete. Its success journey was over. After the release of PS4, Sony stopped selling PS2 in 2013. However, in fact, gamers still miss the feeling of nostalgia in playing many popular PS2 games until now.
Do you want to play it again? If so, now you can play PS2 games on Android using emulators. There are three ways to play PS2 games on Android, using Play!, AetherSX2, and DamonPS2 Pro emulator.
How to play PS2 games on Android with Play! emulator
According to Purei.org, Play! is a PlayStation 2 emulator for the Win32, OSX, iOS, and Android platforms. This is the first PS2 game emulator available for Android.
The advantages of this emulator are...
- You don't need PS2 games BIOS. Play! is a high-level emulator.
- Easy configuration. No custom settings to fix specific games.
- Available on many platforms. Making sure the experience is the same everywhere.
If you want to use Play!, follow this step-by-step guide:
Step 1: Download and install the Play! emulator on your smartphone. You can download the new version via Purei.org or Play Store.
Step 2: Create a file in ISO format from the original PS2 games. You could use software such as "Ultra ISO" and others. You also can get PS2 games ISO for free on Romspedia, Emuparadise, Coolroom, and others.
Step 3: Extract the PS2 games ISO.
Step 4: Move the PS2 game ISO to the Android smartphone. You can place it anywhere.
Step 5: Open the Play! app that you just installed. The game will automatically be detected immediately. Done! Now can play your favorite PS2 games!
Brief review: This emulator still needs improvement and a lot of time to develop.
How to play PS2 games on Android with DamonPS2 Pro
After Play!, now comes DamonPS2 Pro, an emulator that can play PS2 games on Android a little more smoothly. DamonPS2, an app developer from Hong Kong, China, developed this emulator.
With the slogan of The Fastest PS2 Emulator for Android in Global, of course, many Android gamers are smitten with the features of this emulator.
A little information...
Actually, I heard about the release of this emulator on the Google Play Store in November 2017, but because I made Harvest Moon: Light of Hope guide, I just had time to discuss it on this blog recently.
Compared to Play!, although a newly released emulator, DamonPS2 Pro manages to run many PS2 games.
The developer itself claims this emulator is capable of running many PS2 games on certain Android phones.
For example, Samsung Galaxy S8, Mi6, Huawei P10, and smartphones with equivalent specifications (Snapdragon 835) can run 90% of PS2 games smoothly.
Some examples of PS2 games you can play include:
- Final Fantasy XI can be 60 fps
- God of War 2, can be 55 fps
- Contra - Shattered Soldier, can be 48 fps
- Marvel vs Capcom 2, can be 60 fps
How to play PlayStation 2 games on Android using the DamonPS2 Pro
Follow the steps below:
Step 1: You need to get the following materials:
1. DamonPS2 Pro Emulator
You can buy it from the Google Play Store for $9.99.
Update January 9, 2018: DamonPS2 Pro was temporarily removed from Google Play caused of violations of the use of descriptions that don't meet Google Play specifications/standards.
The developer also deals with PCSX2 about the source codes they use on the DamonPS2 Pro emulator. The PCSX2 team claims that DamonPS2 has stolen the PCSX2's source codes.
Update January 25, 2018: DamonPS2 Pro is back on the Google Play Store. Parallel Space can no longer be used to play DamonPS2 Pro's newer version for free.
Update February 2018: Now you can get the free version on Google Play.
You also get it free via the certain web, just search through Google with the keyword 'Download DamonPS2 Pro'.
If you don't want to be confused with the updates of the app and how to install it, I suggest you buy it on Play Store.
2. PS2 Game(s) ISO
You can download all games on websites like Emuparadise, Coolrom, Lover, and others. You also can search by keywords 'PS2 Game Name ISO' on Google.
3. PS2 BIOS
You can easily get it on Google. This one for example:
Link: https://goo.gl/Kf7tkX
*Copy-paste the above link into your browser.
4. Parallel Space (Optional)
You can get this app for free on the Google Play Store. Note: You can no longer use this for the updated version.
Step 2: Extract the BIOS.zip file using the 7zipper/Z archiver/Rar app into a folder in Internal Memory.
If you do not have one of the above extractors, install it first, and download it for free on the Google Play Store.
Step 3: Extract the zip ISO game file of PS2 into the folder you want, one folder with BIOS also no problem.
Step 4: Install the Parallel Space, and open the app. Add DamonPS2 Pro, then activate Quick Mode (click the dot icon at the top right of the screen) to remove the license from DamonPS2 Pro.
Step 5: Run DamonPS2 Pro from the Parallel Space app. When you have entered the main menu, open the BIOS menu, and find the BIOS file you extracted earlier (e.g. scph10000.bin).
Remember, you do not need Parallel Space if you buy the DamonPS2 Pro on Google Play Store.
Step 6: Enable the BIOS.
Step 7: Open the games menu and run the PS2 game ISO that you extracted earlier.
Step 8: Congratulations! Now you can play PS2 games on your Android smartphone.
Unfortunately, because it's still in the early stages of development, you can't play some heavy PS2 games smoothly on smartphones with lower specifications than I mentioned above.
To prove it, I experimented with playing Harvest Moon: Save The Homeland. These are the results of my experiment.
DamonPS2 Pro review for playing HM STH on Android (Tested on Flash Plus 2)
The Android phone specs:
- OS: Android Marshmallow 6.0
- Processor: MediaTek Helio P10 Octa-core 1.4GHz
- GPU: Mali-T850MP22
- RAM: 2 GB
- Memory: 16 GB Internal Memory (Modified to 32 GB with external SD card)
As you know, Harvest Moon: Save The Homeland is one example of a heavy game like Harvest: A Wonderful Life if played on Android. So I select this game as a sample for this review.
When the Natsume and Marvellous pictures show up, it's still smooth. But after entering the main menu, there is a scene of a dog walking around, the game is lag and runs very slowly (slow motion).
The FPS (Frame rate per second) obtained during the game can reach 20-40 FPS, but for some reason, it's still slow even though I try to change the settings.
From the above experiments, we can conclude that:
- The DamonPS2 Pro emulator is still in the early stages of development, as I have explained above.
- The processor is less suitable. As we know, MediaTek is not good enough to play games when compared with Qualcomm Snapdragon. That's one reason the game runs slow. We conclude that at least its Chipset should be Snapdragon 625 or better.
- The GPU is not good. Mali GPU is less suitable for gaming compared with Qualcomm's Adreno.
- 2 GB of RAM is not enough. In running heavy games, RAM greatly affects the performance. I think we need at least 4 - 6 GB of RAM to play games like Harvest Moon: Save The Homeland smoothly.
From some emulators I've tried, such as Play! or Dolphin (though it's not really a PS2 Emulator), I think so far, DamonPS2 Pro is the best PS2 games emulator on Android.
The developer of DamonPS2 itself promised to update every 2 weeks to fix some bugs and improve the performance of this emulator.
Update January 13, 2023: AetherSX2 is the best free PS2 games emulator on Android right now! You can download and install it from the Play Store. We will talk more about it later in the future.
Although I haven't been able to try this emulator on a smartphone that has a high specification, I hope this article can provide you with an overview. Whether the phone you use can play PS2 games on Android or not.
Hopefully, these emulators can run the PS2 games very well on Android phones with lower specifications with new updates.
That's How to Play PS2 Games on Android. Ask me if you have any problems during installation. For those who already play PS2 games on certain phones with these two emulators, I hope you can share your experience in the comments below. Thanks.