Coalescence

Love everything he's done but his work on Jet Force Gemini might be my favorite. SS Anubis, Sekhmet, Rith Essa, Eschebone, Mizar's Palace, Flume, Asteroid, Gem Quarry... So many incredible tracks and it's a crime the only release this has ever seen is that silly truncated vinyl and that only happened recently.

That's not a gba sp clone, it's yet another software emulator portable styled after the GBA sp. A clone would play gba carts.

I would guess the bumps causing a crash is due to the Pocket having Analogue's typical loose cartridge slot. It's not as noticeable on their consoles since they sit still of course but the company has always struggled in making a solid grip, and the Pocket is no exception. I've had GBA games crash just from setting the Pocket down lightly. If it can't grip the smallest of carts tightly there's no way it can hold an adapter+cart securely.

The Pocket is such a bottleneck device. That screen is outstanding, the filters are gorgeous, the openfpga and cart support is unparalleled. But it's all stuck being piped through a terrible cart slot, a mediocre at best dpad, and lousy shoulder buttons. It desperately needs a revision.

Might as well buy gently used NUC than this odd contraption. Looks more like something for someone who really doesn't know anything about building computers but wants to make it look like they do.

I think my Quintet carts get more play than my Squaresofts, Robotrek very much included. The Final Fantasy games, Chrono Trigger, and Secret of Mana will always be classics but they were mostly iterative refined designs. The Quintet games don't always hit every note perfectly but they're so wonderfully weird and experimental.

Shame about that battle music though. Robotrek has a serviceable OST otherwise but my god that battle theme is one of the most annoying childish pieces of game music I've ever heard.

Very nice read and retrospective! Especially in this day when people would make a two hour video to cover the same content. It's not a terrible movie for one that tried to keep the spirit of the series while rebooting on a new medium. But it definitely was completely manhandled on promotion and suffered some identity crisis with good actors trying to do their best with really stiff dialogue. Maybe if they'd started with the short film to get established and work out the kinks it would have gone much better.

Good on you for putting it right in the headline that Valve made the contact.

Nothing lasts forever but the harsh truth is game consoles were never designed to last this long. It's awesome Nintendo lines tend to be heartier than others but every console has a limited shelf life whether untouched in a box or played regularly. Enjoy it while it lasts and buy extras or things like the Super NT when they're available because it's an increasingly small world for people who want to play original hardware instead of a rom box.

I played the Milton Bradley game at a scout meeting way back when. Everyone including myself thought it was terrible. It was never played again and I'm pretty sure the kid who brought it never came back out of shame. I also read the choose your own adventure and did what I usually did with those books and just read it straight through. Something about flipping past pages in a book never sat right with me so I'd keep track of all the paths like I was reading a strategy guide.

This is the kind of portable emulator I like to see. My time with the Pocket has really made me hate how every device is trying to be the all in one solution. I'd much rather a device focused on doing a few things perfectly than trying to do everything with a bunch of faults and catches.

Stuff like this makes me remember how much of a dullard I am at Street Fighter and fighting games in general. I feel accomplished if I can pull off special moves. And when it comes to combos my brain can't recognize they exist unless a guy shouts them out like in Killer Instinct.

I hope it's the Neo Geo just so all the know it all Pocket buying Analogue newbies can finally stop with their stupid speculations that Analogue is done making individual consoles and is definitely making a Mister competitor next.

Looks like a nice software emulator, but if it can't play original carts and isn't fpga then it isn't a true competitor for the Pocket.

The PSX core especially is less of a landmark when the PS3 slim is already a perfect modern PS1 and the Vita is a flawless portable PS1. With the N64 being a totally different beast than any other console with all that custom microcode, I'll be impressed when they have huge chunks of the games running at 100% accuracy. Until then it's all baby steps. But I'd be as stoked as anyone to be able to play Body Harvest flawlessly outside of the original console on a modern display. And maybe in ten years Analogue will make their Ultra NT or whatever.

Really wish they would have made an openfpga and non version of this. I just want it for the high end game boy console, but can't get one because most everyone wants it for the portable Mister appeal.

@JayJ kind of like that "secret" continue option in Super Mario Bros., It's crazy what common knowledge seems to have skirted around some people.

The entitlement is hilariously insane, as is the romanticism of the content. OoT was a landmark game and an influential title, and it is readily available in its complete form. Whatever iterative demos that came about during the game's development are at best a novelty. There's scores of content for every big game that has never and probably will never see the light of day just as every movie production has stuff that never left the cutting floor, even after supposed "complete" editions were released.

That long cartridge is giving me anxiety.

Very neat. But I decided to keep my GC vanilla after getting hooked on running the games through the Wii U gamepad.

Definitely going to check this out on the Everdrive.

Looks like the kind of thing rich people buy to bust out and brag about having every game ever made including that hot new title, but they never actually game on it. Especially with the pointless, distracting, and battery draining glow sticks.

Looks really solid, and the price is definitely right if you can get it. But I think I'll stick with the Vita still for portable emulation.

I still use mine all the time especially knowing it is not one of Nintendo's most durable consoles. I can't imagine letting such a beauty sit in the dust. The Wii U is an emulation powerhouse and cozy as can be with the gamepad.

At the risk of opening a philosophical debate, when does it become an artificial or wholly emulated experience? The Analogue line is a very close recreation because it's an original cart with an original controller piped through emulated hardware. Plugging a controller and cart into the Remix to leverage processing power of a computer, or playing said games through the cloud just sounds like a step too far removed to get the genuine classic experience. I'm sure this will work for some people though it's hugely risky to spread themselves out so thin when the Polymega proper hasn't had much time to grow. But for me it's either the fpga experience of something like my Super NT or original hardware. Anything past that I'd just as soon load up RetroArch.

Still one of my most beloved childhood carts. I wish the box would have survived, but my mom cleared out all the cardboard game boxes one day when I was at school. I'll never forgive the recycling programs for giving her the idea.

Also just thirding the Japanese cart comment. IIRC, the only Japanese text is in the menus to change the button settings.

It's not really a transition in the sense that the original gameplay was successfully migrated to 3D. Prime is a great series, but it's a wholly different take on Metroid. The same can't be said for Mario or Zelda who preserved the spirit of each game well. Zelda wins by having the benefit of Mario going first, there were more years of knowing how to utilize the console by the time OoT dropped. But overall, Final Fantasy's leap into the future is what I was most impressed by.

Looks super slick, and more comfortable for my big hands. I've been in the market for a new 6 button for the Mega SG, this looks like a winner and the price is right.

Depends on the game, depends on the player. The first Zelda will always be timeless to me, but I can also see why someone who started with Ocarina or Wind Waker would find it unappealing to wander around an overworld with the most basic map, having no indication of what walls can be bombed or bushes can be burned. Game Boy Games are an interesting case because there's some incredibly creative design working around the limitations of the system and lack of strict direction because longer portable games were a new thing. They are some of the purest gaming experiences and soundtracks for that reason - Link's Awakening especially.

Great piece. If you paid for your own console games in the 90s or lived with getting one new game year from your parents, you know how cheap and accessible gaming is today. And as you noted, how much more bang for the buck you get. An old RPG was one thing, but aot of full priced games back then could be completed in a day or two and that might be your one new game for year. Hard to call someone spoiled if they don't know what they don't know, but it does give some perspective on how this has become a far less premium hobby over the last two decades.

I generally prefer to buy, because I just don't have time to tinker with emulators and roms anymore, don't always feel like digging out the old hardware, and I have a very low tolerance for things like audio glitches and input delay. But I will for games that can't be easily played whether out of print or stuck in untranslation. Analogue's line is more or less perfect for my wants and I wish they weren't the only game in town because they're kind of a maddening company in a Nintendo-like way.

And I don't care to what degree what anyone else does on this matter so long as they aren't so annoyingly smug about it as emulating folk tend to be.

Definitely needed Legendary Axe, Cadash, and World Court Tennis for that Dragon Quest style mode. Maybe Sidearms too. But otherwise a solid list. Especially because you didn't include JJ and Jeff which weirdly snakes its way onto a lot of lists.

Gosh those memory cards were such junk. I had three official cards from Nintendo, one of the routinely wiped, one would randomly lose save files, one worked well for a year and died completely. I had a Performance card that worked decently but by then I also bought a dex drive and regularly backed my files up to a PC. I wish someone would make an updated version of that, since it uses a serial port, but this card looks like a nice alternative.

WATA is impressively scummy. Even after being thoroughly exposed by Karl Jobst they just keep acting like they're a legitimate operation. Not that the money launderers involved care, but I feel bad for anyone who wastes money having their games given a worthless grading.

That was a great read, thanks! I always love to know more about this game, it's such a unique gem with the alchemy system and The Dog. The soundtrack deserves praise as one of Jeremy Soule's early efforts, it really stood apart from other OSTs of the time. A shame the Mana pedigree held it back in more than one way since it really stands on its own as a great game but at least it has picked up love over time.

Hopefully Tommy sticks with Video Games Live again. He's a fantastic hype man and showrunner but he definitely can't do business.

I just want this to go away already, and for Tommy to get back to the Video Games Live series.

@Serpenterror had a very similar experience with my RG350. I can't believe how tolerant people are to crappy dpads and buttons and button placement these days. The Analogue pocket also has a lousy dpad and laughable shoulder buttons but no one wants to talk about that either. I can pick up my 20 year old OG GBA and immediately feel the difference.

I'm sure this appeals to someone. But definitely not me. I grew up in the 80s, and I have endless nostalgia for the Gameboy. But it's not like Gameboys up and vanished. I can pull mine out now with an Everdrive and dive into any random game from a massive library of classics. These games all look like a few minute time wasters. I get enough weird looks from being an adult playing with a handheld game console, I'd hate to be sitting in public fiddling with that crank on a kiddie yellow unit.

@the_shpydar I'd rather they just be up front and disclose that they received a review unit with affiliate links at the end as NL does, instead of everyone pretending that this sort of thing doesn't happen on every big gaming website.

Maybe Tommy can get back to focusing on Video Games Live now. We're past due for a new level.

I held a tape recorder to my game boy back in the day just so I could listen to the music of Belmont's Revenge on the bus. I can probably credit the guy for getting me into both metal and classical music, with New Messiah and Original Sin sounding like chiptune thrash and those impressive chipped renditions of Bach's Chromatic Fantasy & Debussy's Passepied.

This is a humblebrag review of beta hardware with immediate comments attempting to preclude people from having opinions in response because you're not allowed to have thoughts until you're $400 deep. Nothing brings out the especially smug & snide like emulation.

The lack of FPGA is a dealbreaker, especially at that price and with add-ons. I'm not paying a premium for potentially (and likely) flawed emulation, may as well just stick with a raspberry pi or pc.

@Deanster101 mother of god. This thing is such a scam.

All I'm really interested in with something like this is the emulation quality, and since the core unit is still system on a chip, it's doubtful this thing will be any better than a retropi or any number of non-fpga systems. I'm not paying $250 for brute force imperfect emulation and some novelty features.