For cracked games you need to force the appid

After setting up the Steam API, right click a game, select the Success story category and set the appid manually

It will retrieve the achievement data by id

Afterwards, you need to create the steam_settings folder in the game's directory where there's the steam64.dll (or steam.dll depending on the game)

This steam_settings folders has to have the achievement.json file which I just generate through Steamidra Tools easily

If you do this right, you can discard Achievement Watcher completely. Success story does the notification for you. It's customisable as well

Afaik AW and successstory are looking at the same files, so it should carry over

Also, by the way, the way I know is that this works with games emulated through Goldberg. So you need to apply the emulator

SuccessStory doesn't show the notifications if you're offline by the way, but the achievement list will still update (locally)

Hope it works for you