Console(s) of the Month (Dec 2023) - Modern Retro Consoles

[bmoc]

For December, I figured we would go with something more open-ended and explore modern alternatives for playing retro games. Some examples might be:

- Analogue products (SuperNT, MegaNT, Pocket, etc)
- retroUSB's AVS
- Hyperkin Retron products
- MiSTer FPGA
- MARSFPGA
- Arcade1up
- Polymega
- Classic Mini consoles (NES Classic, PlayStation Classic, etc)
- PC with an emulation frontend

What is your favorite way to play when you aren't using original hardware? Give us your thoughts, experiences, tier lists, or whatever else you think would be interesting to discuss about new ways to play old games.

[Limewater]

My favorite "modern" way to play old games now qualifies as "retro" itself.

The Dingoo A320

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingoo

Released in 2009, it has been my go-to for portable NES enjoyment. I haven't measured lately, but I'm pretty sure I could get over ten hours on a charge when it was new. The buttons and d-pad feel pretty good, though there is a slight tendency to read a "down" directional input when it's not intended.

It's not native resolution for the NES, but it's high-enough resolution that it doesn't have to drop any lines. This, in my mind, makes it superior to NES emulation on the GBA or DS.

I give the Dingoo three out of four modded Playstation Classics.

It came with some weird Chinese games as well, like "Decolation Warrior," which is about a guy who is decapitated, so his torso grows a mouth and two eyes so that his decapitated body can come back to life to get revenge, and "7 Days Salvation," a survival horror that was creepy enough that I only played it once.

I have two Arcade1Up cabinets, Asteroids and Centipede. Asteroids has Asteroids, Major Havoc, Lunar Lander, and Tempest. I've mostly used it to play Asteroids, which I have yet to successfully roll the score. I replaced the spinner because the original one was garbage. The new one makes Tempest much more playable, which is good, because Tempest was most of the reason I got the cabinet.

The Centipede cabinet has the track ball games Centipede, Millipede, Missile Command, and Crystal Castles. Of these, Crystal Castles is my favorite. It's such a great game. It has ten levels, each with four maps, though I think the tenth level only has one map. I've gotten to the ninth level, but I don't think I'll ever actually beat it. The problem with this cabinet is that you can spin the trackball faster than the system itself can read it. This causes the inputs to stutter. Instead of slapping Bentley Bear across the map, he just stutters around in place. I am certain that the original cabinet did not behave this way. This means that you eventually learn to surf the maximum speed allowable before the input stutters. This was pretty disappointing, but the game is still a lot of fun.

The cabinets for both look really good. I'm glad I got them cheap. I would never pay full price for them.

I have the Genesis Mini and an unmodded Playstation Classic, but I haven't really played either very much.

[prfsnl_gmr]

Great topic!

I have an Anbernic RG350, and I love it! It is a well-designed handheld with a 4:3 screen and a Linux-based OS. It will emulate all systems up to PS1 reasonably well, and it has been a great way for me to explore my gaming library.

It’s easily replaceable; so, I don’t worry about bringing it on trips. Also, it looks and sounds great; it’s small; it’s well-built; and the buttons are arranged well. Also, it only cost me about $100 a few years ago. There are newer versions with much more powerful hardware, but I have so many games on it, I haven’t seen any need to replace it yet.

I am interested, maybe, in consolidating a mini PC for emulation. Have any of you done that?

[Melek-Ric]

MisterFPGA1.jpeg (279.8 KiB) Viewed 10813 times

Pardon the dust!

Mister FPGA, for me, is worth every penny. It eliminates the need for countless consoles, arcade boards, retro pc's, handhelds. It works on HDTV's and CRT's, and gives you tons of options for application, case, controllers, etc. Yes, the initial cost is getting more pricey as time goes on, but it saves you a lot of money in the long run if you don't care about collecting OG hardware and software.

And the impossible N64 core is rapidly becoming more and more playable. Every game I have tried on it works fine. It will probably never be accurate, but I don't think 5th gen cores need to be accurate. I would rather games run at 30 FPS than an accurate 23. PS1 is great and the Saturn core is good nowadays.

[bmoc]

My favorite "modern" way to play old games now qualifies as "retro" itself.

The Dingoo A320

I've never heard of this one but it looks to be a good option!

I have two Arcade1Up cabinets, Asteroids and Centipede.

I'd love to have a few of these but gameroom doesn't have the space. My top picks would probably be TMNT, Simpsons, Killer Instinct, and X-Men vs Street Fighter.

I have an Anbernic RG350

I've good things about a few Anbernic models. Personally, I'd spend a little extra and get the Analogue Pocket. The Anbernics sound a lot more flexible though. Definitely more readily available!

Mister FPGA, for me, is worth every penny

I wish I had gotten one a few years ago when they were much cheaper. Currently I'm holding out to see how the MARSFPGA fairs. They are attracting a lot of retro hardware talent for certain features. Mike Chi (retroTINK) is doing some of the scanline and filter work. And they just announced that JayBee (GUN4IR) is doing lightgun support for them.

Sadly, the only "modern" retro console that I own is a Polymega. While its a great product, Playmaji is a terrible company and the current price is ludicrous. $550 for a base unit is downright delusional. When I bought mine, it was $250 and I felt that was a pretty good value for what it does. My main complaint after using it for a few years is lack of controller support. The included wireless controller is just ok. I'd like to be able to use something better and preferably something that I already own like a PS3/PS5/XboxOne controller even if it is wired. What I really want to see most of all is better customer support and actually delivering on their promises.

[Melek-Ric]

I wish I had gotten one a few years ago when they were much cheaper. Currently I'm holding out to see how the MARSFPGA fairs. They are attracting a lot of retro hardware talent for certain features. Mike Chi (retroTINK) is doing some of the scanline and filter work. And they just announced that JayBee (GUN4IR) is doing lightgun support for them.

Sadly, the only "modern" retro console that I own is a Polymega. While its a great product, Playmaji is a terrible company and the current price is ludicrous. $550 for a base unit is downright delusional. When I bought mine, it was $250 and I felt that was a pretty good value for what it does. My main complaint after using it for a few years is lack of controller support. The included wireless controller is just ok. I'd like to be able to use something better and preferably something that I already own like a PS3/PS5/XboxOne controller even if it is wired. What I really want to see most of all is better customer support and actually delivering on their promises.

I didn't know the Polymega was like that. I thought it looked great, but the overall price for addon's put me off. Plus it seemed to be best suited for gamers who already owned a decent collection of carts and cd's. I did love how its UI looked. But not having good controller support kills it.

At this point, see what MARS has to offer, but Mister is a mature package with a lot of community support and products for it. I am going to buy the SNAX adapter soon so that I can use OG controllers and get real hardware-like levels of input delay. I also have a second, brand new DE10-Nano board I am trying to sell...

[BoneSnapDeez]

Is the Polymega actually out??? I was hyped for that AGES ago.

I have a RetroFreak and love it. Use it for basically all my 3rd/4th gen cartridge gaming. It made my Retron 5 redundant, though I was really into that for a couple of years.

I've also got a Retron 77, which I like well enough..... but I'm kicking myself as I purchased it about a week before the (presumably better) Atari 2600+ was announced.

[marurun]

I actually don't mind releases like the Nintendo Online stuff, though I guess for non-originally gaming I also have a bunch of dedicated "mini" consoles and a Retroid I don't ever use. The Retroid is nice enough, though it only really had one analog stick (the other is just an 8-way slider). The screen is clear and bright and it supports up to PS1 emulation quite well. I played a bunch of SotN on it and enjoyed it until my wrists said NOPE! and I had to stop. My goal was just to play PS1 games on the go, but I haven't really been doing that. For mini consoles I managed somehow to acquire an NES, SNES, Genesis, TG-16 (US version), and the SNK Neo Geo Arcade Stick Pro. And I don't have time to play any of them, which kind of sucks.

At some point I need to retool my retro game spaces, especially now that I finally have an XRGB mini. I'd love to take the 32" 1080p gaming monitor I have connected to my computer and just make it a dedicated classic mini station. 32" is just too big for my computer. I need to get another 27" in that space and get that 32" out of there.

[opa]

I've got two Arcade1Up cabinets. Mortal Kombat (regular) and PacMan (partycade). Besides the Mortal Kombat games, the MK cab comes with: Joust, Wizard of Wor, Toobin, Rampage, Gauntlet, Rootbeer Tapper, Defender, Bubbles, Paperboy, and Klax. Its kind of funny because Rootbeer Tapper of all things has kind of become the go-to title on the machine. My wife, father-in-law, and I actually try to keep beating each other's scores. Currently I hold the high score. As a funny aside my wife doesn't use her initials on the high-score table. She keeps inputting A-S-S for her scores. lol. I have since refused to allow ASS to be the high score by recently getting the top spot. Hopefully I can keep my record. lol

The PacMan machine is the "partycade" style (which I'm not sure if they still make anymore). Basically it's a thin cabinet that comes with hardware to mount on the wall should you desire. Mine has PacMan, Pac Mania, PacMan Plus, Galaga 88, and DigDug. I mostly play Dig Dug and PacMan. I got it really cheap and I plan on mounting it on the wall when I move.

As far as official mini-consoles I have an SNES mini and a C64 mini. The C64 mini is great because it has a decent selection of Commodore games and I don't have to bother with an emulator on my pc to get a quick fix. The SNES mini I'm probably going to get rid of. I have so many devices to play SNES games on that I don't really need it. The controllers are good though, I'll give it that.

I also have an Anbernic 351p. It can play up to PS1 games pretty well (even some PSP titles work fine). However, Saturn and N64 are unplayable for me. I'm mostly using it for Game Boy and Genesis games and those run flawlessly. I'd recommend one. Pretty inexpensive all-in-one device that you can throw in a bag when you're traveling and not worry about.

I still have a Raspberry Pi 3B+ kicking around my junk boxes somewhere. It still works for retropie; I just don't have a need to have it plugged up right now. Maybe I'll use it for a MAME setup later when I have the time.

[ZRofel]

I've long been a champion of the GPD handhelds. They tend to be a little bit pricier than other handheld emulators, but I feel like the performance is worth it. I got a GP2X Wiz ages ago that I used to play through a bunch of SNES RPGs. It's about the size of a Gameboy Micro with a nice, clear screen and responsive buttons that have become marginally less-so over time due to heavy use. Some years later I upgraded to a GPD XD, which looks almost exactly like a 3DS XL. It has an Android OS instead of the Linux one that the Wiz had, which I'm not thrilled about, but the hardware is substantially more powerful, so I feel like it's worth the tradeoff. Also, it has a huge touchscreen, which makes it ideal for emulating fan-translated DS games, as long as you're okay with horizontally instead of vertically aligned screens. Most recently, I grabbed the crowd-funded GPD Win Max system they released back at the start of the pandemic. It's essentially a powerful micro-PC constructed as a handheld, so it can handle any emulation that a PC can. It's obviously quite a bit bigger than the other GPD handhelds or stuff like the Anbernic, but I feel like form-wise, it's really not any bulkier than using a Switch in handheld mode. I've used it to play through some PS2, WiiWare, and Gamecube games, but the real joy has actually been using it as a handheld PC to play through my enormous library of GOG titles and PC freeware. When I first started using it, I quickly tore through a bunch of older indie games like Shank, Octodad, and Stacking that I'd been really interested in playing but hadn't wanted to be trapped at my office desk for. Since then, it's kind of become a GOG handheld, which is awesome. Obviously the Steam Deck came out about a year later and stole a lot of it's thunder, but I've gotten my hands on a Steam Deck and actually prefer the flexibility of the GPD Win Max.

I also have a Raspberry Pi setup with Retropie from a number of years back. It doesn't get a ton of play now that I have the Win Max, but it's fun to use to play quirky arcade games co-op when I have friends over. I've thought about upgrading to a Raspberry Pi 4 at some point, but at present, it doesn't feel like it offers a significant enough boost to retro gaming to justify the cost of a new system.