Metadata
How game metadata is sourced and used.
Offline-First Design
Replay Control works fully offline from the first install. Built-in databases provide genre, player count, year, and display names for ~34K console ROMs and ~15K playable arcade games without any network access.
When connected to the internet, you can optionally enrich your library with additional data from external sources. These fill gaps that the built-in data does not cover but are never required.
Built-In Data
Console Games (~34K ROMs)
Display names, year, genre, developer, player count, and region for games across 20+ systems. Data is sourced from No-Intro, TheGamesDB, and libretro-database at build time.
Games are identified by filename, with a CRC32 hash fallback for 9 cartridge systems when the filename does not match the database.
Arcade Games (~15K playable entries)
Covers MAME, FBNeo, and Flycast (Naomi/Atomiswave) arcade systems. Each entry includes display name, year, manufacturer, player count, rotation, driver status, clone/parent relationships, and category.
Non-playable machines (slot machines, gambling, etc.) are filtered out.
Genre Taxonomy
Both console and arcade databases map to a shared set of ~18 normalized genres: Action, Adventure, Beat’em Up, Board & Card, Driving, Educational, Fighting, Maze, Music, Pinball, Platform, Puzzle, Quiz, Role-Playing, Shooter, Simulation, Sports, Strategy, and Other.
Series Data
~5,345 game series entries across 194+ franchises from Wikidata, with sequel/prequel chains and ordinals. See Game Series for details.
External Metadata (Optional)
LaunchBox Import
Download the LaunchBox XML file (~460 MB) from the metadata page. The import:
- Parses the file with real-time progress updates (downloading, parsing, matching)
- Automatically matches entries to your ROM library by title
- Shows per-system coverage stats after import
Data imported: description, rating, rating count, publisher, developer, genre, max players, release date, and cooperative flag.
Where the built-in database already has a value (e.g., genre), it takes priority. LaunchBox data only fills gaps.
Box Art and Screenshots
See Thumbnails for image downloads from libretro-thumbnails.
ROM Tag Parsing
ROM filenames are parsed to extract region, revision, and classification tags. Supported naming conventions:
- No-Intro – parenthesized tags:
(USA),(Rev 1),(Hack),(Beta), etc. - GoodTools – bracket flags:
[!]verified,[h]hack,[T-Spa]translation, etc. - TOSEC – structured tags: year, publisher, side/disk, country codes, language codes, format suffix
ROM Classification
ROMs are classified into tiers that affect their visibility in recommendations and variant sections:
| Category | Examples | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| Original | No special tags | Included in recommendations |
| Revision | (Rev 1), (Rev A) | Shown as variant, included in recommendations |
| Translation | (Traducido Es), [T+Spa] | Separate section, excluded from recommendations |
| Hack | (Hack), [h1] | Separate section, excluded from recommendations |
| Special | (Unl), (Homebrew), (Beta), (Pirate) | Excluded from recommendations |
Cache Management
The metadata page provides tools to manage stored data:
- Clear metadata – removes imported LaunchBox data
- Clear images – removes downloaded box art and screenshots
- Cleanup orphaned images – removes downloaded images no longer associated with any game in the library, with a safety threshold per system to prevent accidental mass deletion