Evercade the new retro handheld

It's a nice wee thing

Seen the new arcade series coming, really like the arcade games packaging and the VS is sort tempting that I might use more than plugging a handheld into a TV like a PSP.

However that's £90 towards a PS5, two or three Switch games, anything else.

...meaning that this year's releases are looking like this:


While there's plenty of good games Technos, Atari and Data East cartridges, they're mostly all very familiar to retro gamers - especially if you've got Antstream. Gaelco is the only collection that's presenting anything truly different - I'd honestly never heard of any of those games. Mind you, Evercade have shown that they've got an incredible knack for licensing some utter keech. No joke, that Piko Interactive 2 collection has three of the very worst games I've ever played on it. By that logic, maybe there's good reason why I don't know about these Gaelco games. 

I'm happy to read that the arcade cartridges are £14.99 as well, meaning that they're cheap enough that I'll be happy to pick them up. I'm not sure about the VS. console though. I've never been tempted to hook up my Evercade handheld to my TV via HDMI, it's strictly a portable for me. 

£90 doesn't seem too bad if it's coming with two of these four arcade collections, but you're right, that's money that can go on something else. Personally, I might use it towards a Playdate.

Some extra games on the VS

The Vs. seems to be a well-designed and intelligent piece of kit that’s had a lot of effort put into it. To be honest though, I’d just prefer an enhanced handheld. The technology inside the one that launched just last year already feels a bit ancient, with it’s low-quality display and it’s micro USB port for charging. I’ve got a really annoying and big speck of dust caught under the screen of mine, which shows that the build quality isn’t as tight as I’d first thought. Only having two shoulder buttons is clearly an issue for emulating PlayStation games too.

Still, £109.99 for the home console with two pads and two arcade cartridges is a good price – and it’s this price as well as the ricketiness of the original Evercade that might push me to get this Vs. console in the end, even though I’m not truly wanting it.

Although it's asking a lot right before Christmas, the six cartridges that are coming out on the same day next month have plenty of unusual and uncommon games on them, and I think that’s when the Evercade is at its best. I hope they announced much more like that in 2022.

There’s a new blog post on the Evercade’s website. It lists their plans for 2022:

https://evercade.co.uk/looking-forward-to-evercade-2022/

I’d say there’s more bad news than good here. Basically, four of the (best) cartridges are going out of stock because licenses are expiring, and all the others are going to see a price hike. The handheld bundles are going up by £20 too. I appreciate that parts are said to be expensive and tricky to source, but the Evercade is old technology that’s not extravagantly built.

The Evercade Vs. is out this month too, but there’s been all sorts of COVID-related problems with production, shipping providers and delivery dates. All my pre-orders for the six new carts were randomly cancelled on Amazon last month, but some of them have popped back up on store without an estimated delivery date. My local GAME doesn’t even have the Evercade Vs. on their scheduled stock list – when I asked about it, they tried to sell me one of those mini Amiga 500s.

Thanks on the heads up on the games going out of stock - I've had my eye on this for a while but never jumped in, and those Namco carts are part of the appeal!

Of all things, Evercade launched a gaming helpline earlier in the week:



I’ve read that it’s quite alike to the types of ones that were around pre-internet, with news stories, tips and high score challenges. I can’t think of anything that’s less pragmatic, but it adds to the Evercade’s authenticity, so fair cop.

They also announced another cartridge on that helpline, and publicly shared news of it today:



A Gremlin Interactive cartridge wasn’t too hard to predict. It fits the typical Evercade bill of being cheap and British but deeply nostalgic. But it’s a fairly uncommon and overall weird set of games too. Right enough, Zool and Premier Manager ’97 have been on Antstream Arcade another similar services for a while now, but I don’t think anybody’s thought about Actua Soccer or Hardcore 4X4 in about twenty-five years. I’d truthfully never heard of the other two until now. So, what’s here is a first-gen 3D football game, a first-gen 3D racer, a consolised football management simulator, a consolised God game, a Game Boy puzzler and a wonky 2D platformer that’s fuelled by Chupa Chups lollies.

Who curates this stuff? It's very hard to imagine anybody having much fun with that choice of games in 2022.

On one hand, I think it’s really poor that they’re sunsetting the original Evercade handheld after it’s next firmware update, barely two years since it launched. They’re not even guaranteeing that all the games from all their future cartridges are going to work with that firmware either. Also, the EXP is supposedly going to have bonus content that won’t work with the 2020 handheld, or even the 2021 Vs. home console. That console isn’t even six months out!

Yet on the other hand that original Evercade feels like a much older piece of technology than something from mid-2020. With a low-quality screen, a loose-feeling build, too few buttons and a micro USB port, it clearly needed a substantive upgrade. Do the upgrades seen in the video make it worth £130 though? I’m not swaying towards it just now.

I’m happy with those two newest cartridge announcements though, and the previous two as well. Lots of good stuff on the four of them. I can give Evercade credit for now focusing their products and games on retro enthusiasts who want a premium experience. I think they now understand that nobody is walking into GAME or HMV and thinking ‘wow, a cartridge console with City Connection and Boogerman!’ and impulsively buying one of these Evercades. It’s all engineered for collectors who want interesting and unusual experiences. I think their games choice on Jaleco Arcade 1, Gaelco Arcade 2, Irem Arcade 1 and Toaplan Arcade 1 better reflect that than does most of the utter mince that they included on Interplay 2 (groan), Atari 1 (shudder) or PIKO Interactive 2 (vomits).

The bonus content is these Capcom games

1942 (Arcade version)
1943 (Arcade version)
1944 : The Loop Master (Arcade version)
Bionic Commando (Arcade version)
Captain Commando (Arcade version)
Commando (Arcade version)
Final Fight (Arcade version)
Forgotten Worlds (Arcade version)
Ghouls ‘n Ghosts (Arcade version)
Legendary Wings (Arcade version)
MERCS (Arcade version)
Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting (Arcade version)
Strider (Arcade version)
Vulgus (Arcade version)
Mega Man (8-bit)
Mega Man 2 (8-bit)
Mega Man X (16-bit)
Breath of Fire (16-bit)

Which, a bunch will take advantage of the TATE mode on the EXP.

Undermining the whole mantra of the Evercade (physical media for collectors) and splitting the userbase again (those games are exclusive to the EXP) isn't a good direction for them to take. It's undoubtedly a cool bonus, but I can see it pissing a lot of folk off too.

Does suck especially for someone like you. Who must have nearly all the carts (got the lynx one?) and likely to continue to do so, yet won't have some games that look decent as well.

Like for £120, I'm tempted by the EXP with those built-in.

It sets a bad precedent. It's very foreseeable that other publishers - like, say, SEGA or Konami - would only agree to these licensing arrangements too. Then what happens when the Capcom license expires? You'll never be able to get a full collection in the future, and that sort of knackers one of the main things about the Evercade.

It effectively ringfences some of the systems' best games to this new hardware too, and it leaves behind the folk who'd already bought the original handheld and the Vs. console. Combined with the fact that the EXP is the third iteration of the Evercade in well under three years, it feels like a bit of a piss-take.

As for me, I've got most of the carts (including both the Lynx ones) but they've hardly got pride and place in my collection. They're just sort of stacked up to the side of my box of Game Boy games, not in numerical order. It won't break my heart not to have The Capcom Collection physically, but not everybody will feel that same way.

I don't know if the EXP has any internal storage but could see hey the Konami pack is a download, or we get a EXP Konami Edition system which then it be well do I get the Capcom system or the Konami one as that has Castlevania.

When it gets to that stage it’s just becomes like any other retro emulation handheld, except you’re paying for the ROMS. By going digital-only ever again and then not offering a standalone physical cart as an option, it wouldn’t feel like there’s a point to the Evercade. You’d may as well just hack an old PSP.

£120 isn’t a lot of money for a lot of games, the EXP has that going for it. But if you’re genuinely tempted, I’d encourage you to look into the other cartridges first. There’s definitely collections that add a lot of value to the Evercade – in particular the Codemasters one is great, the Renovation one is brilliant value for money and the arcade ones are generally quite interesting and well-rounded. Beyond those though, there’s more misses than hits.