WELL THIS IS INTERESTING.. Retron 5

[wclem]

Sounds like yours is defective. Haven't heard others having the same problem with not recognizing any game.

2nd

3rd

I haven't had any problems with the Retron detecting carts. All I can say is make sure you have properly cleaned the contacts on your carts. You'd be surprised at how much filth is on there. I had one Q-Tip come back black after one swipe in the cart.

I used carts I had recently cleaned and used in original hardware. It has to be a defective unit. Taking back for exchange tonight or tomorrow.

[wclem]

Exchanged my non working for a good one and this thing is great. Loving save states so I can comeback and play games that require one sit through to finish. Anyone with a job or kids or other responsibilities needs this.

[Gunstar Green]

Checking Amazon sellers daily paid off, I actually grabbed a black unit for a few bucks below retail which is kind of amazing since it seems like the cheapest one is going for an insane $234 now.

UPS is dropping it off tomorrow, I'll let you guys know what I think about it.

[wclem]

Anyone in the Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania area with a store called "The Exchange" around you can get them for 140 bucks retail. They are in limited supply there but they may be able to bring one to your store if it is out. This small chain is actually a great store with some locations over 20 years old. Of all the retro stores I go to, they are hands down the best overall. They also will not sell disc that are scratched to death or things that are of questionable functionality.

[Gunstar Green]

Classic Game Room's Mark brought them up a few times. Pittsburgh is way on the other side of the state but if I'm ever in the area I'll check them out.

[Fragems]

Newegg has opened box units for $144 but their policy on open box is pretty shitty. Basically their open box units can be missing the controllers or cables and they don't guarantee everything is there .

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... -_-Product

Newegg only guarantees your receipt of the Open Box product with the purchase of this item. Any accessories MAY OR MAY NOT be included. Newegg will NOT send you any missing accessories, even if it is required to use all of the item's functions.

[ExedExes]

UPS is dropping it off tomorrow, I'll let you guys know what I think about it.

Awesome. Please do.

I've heard that any issues with Mega Man X should be fixed on the next firmware update.

[aaron]

Anyone in the Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania area with a store called "The Exchange" around you can get them for 140 bucks retail. They are in limited supply there but they may be able to bring one to your store if it is out. This small chain is actually a great store with some locations over 20 years old. Of all the retro stores I go to, they are hands down the best overall. They also will not sell disc that are scratched to death or things that are of questionable functionality.

they're also the single most overpriced game store in the midwest.

i used to work at one here in indy, and while it was pretty cool for a while, i got sick of seeing people willingly pay $50 for Mario Kart 64. it's also a bummer to have to offer someone about 20% of what an item will actually sell for and see the look of disappointment/desperation on their face as they accept the cash offer. i realize no one has to make people sell games or accept next to nothing for them, but it's a bummer seeing that over and over and over again.

[wclem]

Anyone in the Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania area with a store called "The Exchange" around you can get them for 140 bucks retail. They are in limited supply there but they may be able to bring one to your store if it is out. This small chain is actually a great store with some locations over 20 years old. Of all the retro stores I go to, they are hands down the best overall. They also will not sell disc that are scratched to death or things that are of questionable functionality.

they're also the single most overpriced game store in the midwest.

i used to work at one here in indy, and while it was pretty cool for a while, i got sick of seeing people willingly pay $50 for Mario Kart 64. it's also a bummer to have to offer someone about 20% of what an item will actually sell for and see the look of disappointment/desperation on their face as they accept the cash offer. i realize no one has to make people sell games or accept next to nothing for them, but it's a bummer seeing that over and over and over again.

You are right, there are some that are nutty with pricing and such. They are not a store with set pricing like Gamestop. You have to find stores where they are doing a good job. Sounds like the one in INDY was kind of screwed up. I have taken them things at times and got about what I would have got if I had sold on Ebay. I am in Ohio though.

Avoid the stores in the neighborhoods where you can tell poor means getting a BMW instead of a Mercedes. I have found those tend to overprice. Hitting the ones in the areas without the perfect houses and the trophy wives will net better results. It is like anything else, be a smart shopper.

[Gunstar Green]

Time for my first impressions!

Before we even get to turning it on, size-wise it fits in well with some of the original machines it's trying to emulate. I wouldn't settle for anything less than the black version because my childhood was defined by Sega more-so than Nintendo (OK the NES was pretty important to me too). And seriously, screw that SNES color scheme!



Honestly it would be nice to have a few more color choices but I think it's kind of cute that they went with the 16-bit era choices to start. Very fitting and I imagine very intentional. The black version still has the SNES-purple lettering on it but I'll let that slide. This time...

The first thing I did of course was try to update the firmware which took some Googling since Retron5.com didn't link to the update page anywhere (unless I'm just blind). What the hell Hyperkin? This is a pretty basic requirement. I shouldn't have to hunt down your firmware update. Regardless this wasn't that big of a deal and I downloaded the update.

Then I had to deal with the whole debacle with the update request that is placed on the SD card. Seemed simple enough, except for whatever reason Google Chrome just refused download the update! Eventually I found the problem through Firefox, Chrome wasn't showing the captcha image for whatever reason, causing me to get booted back to the Retron 5 homepage every time I tried to download it without the robot check.

This was my fault and not Hyperkin's, though they should really find a better way to inform users about the updates as well as point them in the proper direction.

So now it was finally time to play, and play I did. The colors were vibrant and the graphics looked absolutely stunning in HD across all platforms. The included Bluetooth controller isn't ideal for retro games but it's not bad. I kind of like the clicky buttons and the micro-switch control stick, but it's no substitute for the real thing. It might be nice to play around with occasionally though, especially since you can map the extra buttons to different functions.

I've heard complaints about the controller feeling cheap, and it does, but compared to the Retron 3 controllers it's not half bad (and is a MAJOR improvement over those useless paperweights).

It's all a moot point since most people are going to be playing with their original controllers anyway. And the way they handled it is really a treat.



Playing the games with ANY CONTROLLER you want seems like an obvious feature and it's a great one. Playing Game Boy games like Rockman World 5 there with an old NES controller just feels so right. Playing a Mario game with a Sega controller (or vice versa for Sonic) just feels so wrong... and I love it.

The console itself isn't the prettiest thing in the world, but it's not an ugly utilitarian brick like its predecessor. The build quality also feels like a serious step up from their previous consoles.

The biggest complaint about the build quality is, of course, the DEATH GRIP™ pin connectors. I was prepared for this, it's something I expected from the start because they were using the same old mass produced connectors that clones have been using for years. Surprisingly my console actually fared pretty well here. The Genesis port and the NES have quite the death grip though they loosened a bit after some use. The SNES, Famicom and Game Boy ports worked smoothly from the start.

Your mileage may vary on the sound, especially for the Genesis, however it's leagues ahead of the earlier console-on-a-chip clones like you'd expect. Sound accuracy varies form game to game. More can be done about this in future firmware updates but as it stands now it's more than acceptable, just not perfect. It's fun to play with some of the sound and graphical filters but most retro gamers will probably be happy leaving them off instead. I'm not going to complain about extra features even though I'm not going to use them.

Speaking of extra features I'm not going to use, the save game download/upload system still doesn't seem ironed out, but I never intended to use it anyway. One of the big sells of the console to me was save states since a lot of my games have dead batteries anyway.

Next, I decided to start throwing some curve-balls at the Retron 5 and I'm pleased to say I couldn't stump it. It played the Accolade Genesis games I threw at it like Double Dragon, it played the Japanese games I threw at it, it played the Majesco Genesis re-releases (I've personally had some trouble with those on clones before), it played the Mega Man X games fine as far as I could tell and it played PAL games no problem.



A big test for me would be if it would run any reproduction carts, so here's what I threw at it:



Surprisingly after a few tries, every single game worked perfectly. Even more surprisingly was the Retron 5 actually recognized Alien Soldier and Front Mission Gun Hazard even though Gun Hazard is a translated ROM.

Ultimately, I'm pretty satisfied so far, but is it finally the console replacement that we've all dreamed about?

Maybe... it's going to depend on the person and how much authenticity they're willing to sacrifice. It also depends on what features you're looking for. It's not going to replace my Genesis for when I want to rock out to some of the soundtracks the way they're meant to be heard but as far as the Super Nintendo and the NES go I don't feel like I'll have much reason to hook them up again any time soon. The Game Boy is also great and I no longer have to put up with playing the games on my TV with the awful Gamecube D-Pad. However, there needs to be some options added to the emulator so the Super Game Boy games don't always boot to their enhanced mode if you don't want them to.

I haven't played my entire library of course, but I have tried out the games I thought were most likely to give it trouble and I'm impressed.

Of course Omega Boost is kind of pissed that it's not compatible with PlayStation games but there's just no pleasing that guy.



Overall the Retron 5 is pretty slick, despite the rocky launch and all of the Internet doomsaying it's a fun new way to experience your collection. The firmware updates are not very intuitive at first and the save file feature is just sort of broken, but the first problem is fine once you figure it out and whether or not the second problem is a big issue for you depends on your own opinions and what you want to get out of the console.