As a fairly dedicated (I’ll get into that, at length, in more posts) retro gamer, I had reservations about the Evercade. “How good can the emulation be?” and “again with cartridges, is it the 90s still?” and the like.
It was totally unfounded.
I dipped my toes into Evercade with the fantastically named Super Pocket by Hyper Mega Tech!, in this case the Atari flavored one. Half the cost of an Evercade EXP-R, but has an Evercade slot. I paired that with the Piko Interactive Collection 4 cart (because Glover) and, while the control layout was a bit wonky, the emulation for all the games on the cart was great. The Atari Super Pocket is the red one in the pic, Taito is the green one, which came next. Won’t lie, I bought the Taito one because it has both Volfied and Puzzle Bobble on it.
Deciding between the EXP-R (handheld) or VS (set top box) involved a bit of deliberation, but I landed on the EXP-R. Fits my hands well enough, and I like the screen in it. For $99, I wish I’d gone this route right away lol plus it included a Tomb Raider collection cart that I’m still playing.
I like that the cartridges are in hard plastic cases, like a Genesis or Neo Geo game, as opposed to a cardboard box like most handhelds prior to the DS and PSP were. And the inclusion of printed paper manuals is much appreciated.
If anyone is on the fence about Evercade, take this random online person’s advice and just buy the thing.
And if you managed to get your hands on an Evercade Alpha, how are they? They look sick.
