RetroAchievements vs Trophy Rooms

RetroAchievements adds achievement goals and progress tracking to retro games. Players can build profiles, follow completion, and compete with friends. Its game listings span systems from Atari 2600 to PlayStation 2 and include Nintendo, Sega, Sony, and other platforms. Supported emulator options include PCSX2, Dolphin, PPSSPP, Flycast, and BizHawk, with choices for Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS, and browser-based SkyEmu.

Hardcore mode disables save-state loading, cheats, and most speed-altering emulator features. It is required for game mastery and some leaderboards. Community events include RA Roulette and Achievement of the Week, and developers can use public API documentation. Players can report broken achievements and request manual unlocks by providing proof of completion. The service is free. Its web application source code is GPL-3, while achievement trigger logic is proprietary to the RetroAchievements community. The service does not host copyright-protected ROMs. A player must be connected to the internet when starting a session, so fully offline play is not supported. System support and new features depend on volunteers.

Trophy Rooms is a collection catalog and tracker for video games, achievements, and trophies, available on iOS and the web. Its reference catalog contains more than 47,000 published games. You can record games you own or are playing, note the condition of physical copies, and track play time. The service groups platform variants and lets you browse game families, follow official challenge sets, or make your own lists. Completed hunts can appear as trophies and public profile milestones; leaderboards and an activity feed show completed games. Buy and sell lists help with personal planning, but transactions do not happen in the app. An account is required, with registration through Apple, Google, or email and password. Accessibility support includes VoiceOver, Voice Control, Reduce Motion, and WCAG AA text contrast; the maker says it is still checking layouts at the largest text sizes. Users can permanently delete their account and data from inside the app. The privacy policy describes safeguards for stored data while noting that absolute security cannot be guaranteed.