Citra is a software that emulators how Nintendo 3DS works and allows you to play various Nintendo 3DS video games. Emulators are there to make video games meant for older consoles continue to be relevant to newer fans or to help older fans relive their childhood memories. Cintra is there to help you enjoy 3DS video games on your PC without needing to buy a console.
Most retro gaming emulators will only allow you to experience the gameplay while Citra’s developers went on further and also allowed you to experience 3DS sounds. Unfortunately, there are many games that you currently cant play using Cintra, but many popular titles are available.
Popular video games like Pokemon Sun and Moon, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time, Rune Factory 4, and etc. Are available and hopefully, if these don’t satisfy your requirements, they will eventually be added to the Citra’s repertoire. You can easily buy video games for 3DS using eShop and you can also earn Nintendo Points.
Citra Emulator is developed using C++ and many older PCs won’t support it as it requires at least x64 system. This type of system gets more and more common and if your computer satisfies this requirement, you are good to go.
Citra doesn’t come with pre-installed or available video games, and you will need to require games on your own. Unfortunately Citra doesn’t support .3DS and .CIA files so you must decrypt them first before you run them through Citra. Many websites will allow you to do this for free, but there are also fake websites that might add in malware in the file through this process. And besides that, Nintendo is the only legal distributor of games for 3DS so downloading them from third party websites is most likely illegal.
For those that aren’t all that tech-savvy, decrypting video games might also seem frightening, but it’s not that hard after you get used to the process.