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Blaze Entertainment continues to its Evercade ecosystem of devices with new cartridges, supplementing the library of licensed retro games with even more weirdness! We’ve been able to check out the 10 latest releases, so we can let you know what’s worth checking out and why!

The heavy hitters: Tomb Raider and Legacy of Kain 6b1v2a

Tomb Raider has served as Blaze’s cornerstone release of the year, with the collection of three PS1 games included in the bundles for both the EXP-R and VS-R hardware revisions. Lara Croft might be the most recognizable mascot character it could hope to license, and even the earliest games in the franchise are more sweeping adventures than have been available in the Evercade’s quick-fun-focused selection. (It also probably didn’t hurt that Tomb Raider began its life at British studio Core Design; Blaze has shown a lot of love for its home.)

Blaze connected with Crystal Dynamics a second time, too, licensing Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver for a dual-pack. Of all five of these games, action-platformer Soul Reaver definitely holds up best for first-time players. The late-’90s theming that tries a bit too hard aside, the traversal and combat controls work totally fine today and it’s worth a play for Evercade owners! These two releases are the start of the “Giga Cart” line for the company. Essentially, these are cartridges with a slight price bump in exchange for higher storage capacity. That seems fine with us! Though we’re sure these games weren’t the cheapest to license either, and maybe that helps bring more publishers to the platform.

Japanese publishers redux: Sunsoft and Data East Collections 1jrh

Sunsoft Collection 2 arguably bests the first release’s lineup, starring NES platformer Ufouria: The Saga and Game Boy Color gem Blaster Master: Enemy Below. It even throws in some Evercade-signature weirdos, like head-to-head fighter Galaxy Fight and surprisingly compelling Game Boy puzzler Pri Pri Primitive Princess!, which in aggregate we think outweighs the first’s Mr. Gimmick.

We spent a lot of time playing Ufouria on this collection — it’s a great game — and were reminded how PAL games can cause some display issues due to their different resolution. As it stands, they’re stretched wider than they should be, and we wish there were a display option to force 4-by-3 and remedy this. Seems doable in a firmware update, right, Blaze?

Data East Arcade 2 offers a handful of fun Tate Mode options, as well as some great co-op beat-’em-ups. Edward Randy is a blast with unlimited credits, and stars an action hero that definitely isn’t Indiana Jones and why would you even bring that up? Trio The Punch brings a different sort of feel to the genre, with lots of super-short levels. Joe & Mac Returns tries a single-screen take on the caveman game, and can be fun to work through with a friend.

We have games at home: Piko Collection 4 1m4x62

Piko Interactive has embraced its niche of picking up licenses for games that feel like store-brand takes on big releases. But on Evercade, where their first-party siblings are likely never going to appear? That’s kind of appealing. Without Mario Kart, you may actually want to play Street Racer. Without a big-name puzzler, it doesn’t hurt to have Mermaids of Atlantis on the menu. Star X may be missing that F and O you’d want in the title, but it’s as close as you’re going to get here.

The centerpiece of this cart is Glover. We have a soft spot for the N64 platformer, and this version got a bit of development attention to make sure it works okay on the Evercade. It’s definitely a game that you want to play on the VS with a third-party controller so you can use an analog stick, but thankfully the system s that through an in-beta menu option.

Tate Mode showcases: Toaplan Arcade 3 and 4 486o2h

One of the coolest features of the Evercade EXP handhelds is the Tate Mode toggle, allowing you to play games vertically on the display. So it’s good to see some more Toaplan collections with a bunch of Tate Mode-friendly options. There are, of course, shooters — Batsugun, Truxton II, Dogyuun and more — but we’re particularly interested in games that use a vertical display and still offer genre variety.

Ghox is a take on the Breakout formula, with the sort of flash and intensity you’d expect from a developer that usually makes shooters. There are tons of collectibles falling at you, and it even starts with two balls to juggle by default! There are also Out Zone and FixEight, which are arguably still vertically scrolling shooters but on foot rather than flying around. This subgenre, perhaps most popularized by Pocky & Rocky or Shock Troopers, offers its own sort of fun and the ability to control the pace a bit more.

Old computer weirdness: Thalamus and Bitmap Brothers Collections 3ad3r

The selection in the Evercade library has always been tinted by the company’s UK origins, and nothing makes that clearer than the wide array of old computer game representation. Thalamus Collection 1 includes 11 Commodore 64 games from the late 1980s and 1990s. In our experience, the C64 library is a sort of “you had to be there” experience, with “there” meaning “Europe in the 1980s,” and it’s not the easiest to encounter for the first time today. Still, we did have some fun with action-shooter Retrograde.

The Bitmap Brothers Collection 2 offers a selection of Amiga games, which are certainly also quirky but a bit more palatable to modern sensibilities. The Cadaver games are isometric adventure games that take a bit of time to learn to control, but they’re charming. The Chaos Engine 2 is the top of the bunch for us, a top-down action game designed for co-op. And platformer Gods is worth it for the title screen music alone. Added to the collection, perhaps confusingly given the cart’s blue-line categorization, is a console game! The PlayStation port of real-time strategy game Z also makes the cut after missing out on the first, red-line compilation.

New-retro showpieces: Metal Dragon / Life on Mars 18682d

We’re on record saying that the greatest value of the Evercade is in giving modern retrogames accessible cartridge releases, so we’re happy to see that continue with the latest dual-pack. Metal Dragon is an ‘80s-inspired run-and-gun game that unfortunately makes the number-one mistake in games: falsely thinking it’s extremely funny. We wanted to enjoy its action levels and modern approach to controls, but its writing — a Metal Gear spoof seemingly penned by an “edgy” teen boy in detention — is pretty much insufferable.

Life on Mars fares significantly better, thankfully. It’s a Metroid-style exploration platformer, set on a Martian base where all the robots are attacking you as you land to re-establish communications and find out what happened. We wish the controls were a bit tighter — jumping in tight spaces can be particularly irritating — but there’s enjoyment to be found here.

Most of these Evercade cartridges are available now. The Metal Dragon/Life on Mars dual pack and Toaplan Arcade 4 are slated for release in December 2024. For more of Siliconera’s Evercade coverage, check out our archive.

The post The Best Evercade Cartridges of 2024 appeared first on Siliconera.

Blaze Entertainment announced new versions of its Evercade EXP handheld and VS console, which are the Evercade EXP-R and VS-R. Both will appear in July 2024 worldwide, and the handheld will be less expensive than its predecessor. 

Both the new Evercade console and handheld models will look different than the original variants. Instead of red and white being the highlight colors, they are black and turquoise instead. They will also each come with a Giga Cart. However, Blaze didn’t note what the free games on the cartridge will be. 

As for the prices, the new handheld experienced the major price change. The Evercade EXP handheld is $149.99/£129.99/€149.99, and the EXP-R is going to be $99.99/£99.99/€119.99. The Evercase VS console starts at $99.99/£89.99/€99.99, and the VS-R will just be $99.99/£89.99/€109.99. 

Here’s the latest trailer going over the redesigned systems and showing how they look from different angles. It also lets you get a better look at the button placements and games running on the devices.

The Evercade EXP-R and VS-R will release in July 2024, and people can start placing pre-orders for the two of them on April 30, 2024. The previous versions of both systems are immediately available worldwide.

The post Evercade EXP-R Handheld and Evercade VS-R Console Coming appeared first on Siliconera.

Blaze Entertainment’s Evercade platform keeps on going, holding true (so far) to its promise to its hardware releases with a library of cross-compatible cartridges. We’re taking a look at the most recent suite of carts, giving you the lowdown on what they offer and who should consider them.

Indie Heroes Collection 3 4y6j6p

Always a highlight of the library, the Indie Heroes Collection installments batch together recently-developed retro games that cameo as a ed Game of the Month on the systems in the preceding year. A weird inclusion this time: Bubble Seahorse Adventures, which runs natively and sets off all sorts of uncanny valley signals in our brains when we see it running on a platform for retro games. Native ports can work well on the platform, when done right (like Cathedral), but this one feels off.

One of our favorites is Bone Marrow, which takes a very mobile-like slide puzzle and puts a fantasy dungeon-crawling skin atop it. Also a joy is Big2Small. In that game, you use the D-pad to slide animals until they hit an obstacle, using them as aids for each other to guide them each to particular squares. Generally, this cartridge works to mitigate the Evercade’s biggest weakness, which is slower-paced, thoughtful games. And we approve wholeheartedly.

Fans of the single-player puzzles of ChuChu Rocket! should check out the similarly-named Chew Chew Mimic, and VS owners can have some fun with friends in Chibi Monster Br4wl. For a full list of inclusions, you can check out the official Evercade page.

The C64 Collection 3 1a3i43

We’ll it to having less of a nostalgia for the Commodore 64, as American console-heads, but the love and attention that Blaze is giving to the platform is enviable. This third collection adds 13 more games, including ones as well-known as Boulder Dash and as obscure as… Break Dance? The latter’s a strange inclusion on the surface, but it’s one of the first attempts at rhythm gaming and has a Space Channel 5-like repeat-after-me structure.

The Commodore 64 doesn’t make for the most natural fit here — you’ll have to use a virtual keyboard sometimes — but it definitely could be worse. If you’re new to a game, though, we strongly recommend a thorough reading of its section of the manual to explain what’s going on and how to control it. More than consoles, these computer games assume you’ll do that and don’t bother explaining things on-screen.

If you paid any attention at all to the Evercade platform before this article, you probably know about these two Duke Nukem compilations. Launched alongside a commemorative version of the VS, they pull together titles from the franchise’s long history. Collection 1 is built around Duke Nukem 1+2 Remastered, a native port for Evercade of the original side-scrollers, and also adds Duke Nukem 3D: Total Meltdown, the FPS’ PS1 port, for variety.

The second collection has some deeper cuts. Time to Kill and Land of the Babes are PlayStation games with a third-person perspective and a lot of nods to Tomb Raider. Duke Nukem Advance is more of a technological marvel than anything else, getting the full 3D FPS experience up and running on the Game Boy Advance. It remixes a lot of Duke 3D assets to do its own thing, and… just don’t play this one on the VS. Your fun with this in 2024 is inversely proportional to the screen size you play it on.

Demons of Asteborg / Astebros 3l3a3l

We think the Evercade is at its best when it’s showcasing labors of love that wouldn’t usually otherwise carve out a spot on your shelf, and these indie two-packs do that well. Demons of Asteborg is a modern Sega Genesis action-adventure game, with exploration and platforming elements along the way. The animation is smooth and impressive, making for a game that makes you double-check whether it can actually run on original hardware. (Yep, it can!) Along with the gorgeous visuals comes a level of difficulty that is no joke. Perhaps understandably, it’s built for an audience that’s loved action games for decades and played the old ones so much that they needed something new.

Astebros, the included semi-sequel, ratchets down the barrier of entry a few notches, thankfully. It also brings in co-op and roguelike elements, and polishes some of the controls to feel more like its new-retro brethren. You can choose from three characters with different styles, and it’s an especially good time with an Evercade VS, a friend and some snacks. More than anything else in this lineup, this could lure in a pal who usually isn’t down to play older releases.

Goodboy Galaxy / Witch ‘n Wiz 6la3h

Witch ‘n Wiz is an NES block-pushing puzzle game in the vein of Lolo or Sokoban. Your goal is to defeat all the monsters by moving to the same square. There's lots of failure states, so there are two previous buttons dedicated to undoing and resetting the board. It's very much a game about gravity; pushing blocks off platforms and destroying temporary s is part of every solution, but you have to collect things in the right order.

Goodboy Galaxy, a newly-developed GBA platformer, stars a space-pup wandering about and retrieving gadgets and apps to unlock new abilities. The animation in the game nails a very GBA-specific brand of adorable. The environments are bright and colorful, if a bit utilitarian at the expense of world-building; you’ll find gameplay challenge, if not a believable biome. Also the dog is very good!

One cool thing about this release: it includes physical goodies! There are Goodboy Galaxy stickers and a hand-drawn guide map for Witch ‘n Wiz. We imagine this is the sort of thing that comes and goes based on Blaze’s profit margins for a given release, but we like seeing ‘em.

Evercade cartridges work on the Evercade EXP handheld, Evercade VS home system and even the budget-line Hyper Mega Tech! Super Pocket models. For more coverage of the platform, check out our archive.

The post Latest Evercade Cartridges Span Decades of Nostalgia appeared first on Siliconera.

Blaze Entertainment held its May 2023 Evercade Showcase and announced a number of new game collections. Most notably, two Duke Nukem game collection cartridges are on the way, and there will also be a special Evercade VS Atomic Edition variant of the console based on the series. The presentation also noted there will be updates to the systems that add features like per-game button-mapping.

Duke Nukem Collection 1 will give Evercade owners Duke Nukem 1+2 Remastered and Duke Nukem 3. The second collection features Time to Kill, Land of the Babes, and Advance. Both will appear in November 2023, with pre-orders opening in August 2023. As for the Atomic Edition of the console, only 2,000 will be made. They will be sold for £119.99/$148.66 and each one will include a certificate of authenticity. Funstock pre-orders are open now ahead of its November 2023 debut while supplies last.

Here’s the list of all new Evercade game collections that showed up during the May 2023 showcase:

• Delphine Software Cinematique Collection 1: September 2023
• Duke Nukem Collection 1: November 2023
• Duke Nukem Collection 2: November 2023
• Piko Interactive Arcade 1: August 2023
• Sunsoft Collection 1: September 2023
• Sydney Hunter Collection: August 2023

And this is the full Evercade Showcase:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=INymNC2rbzw&ab_channel=Evercade
A second Evercade Showcase will also appear in 2023. That one will air sometime in July 2023. It’s billed as an “indie showcase.”

The next Evercade game releases will be Piko Interactive Arcade 1 and Sydney Hunter Collection in August 2023.

The post Evercade Showcase Featured Duke Nukem Game Collections appeared first on Siliconera.

These days, the Evercade game library’s depth and variety are starting to rival many of the full libraries of the consoles the platform emulates. The latest cart, Indie Heroes 2, is a great example of that, showcasing creativity and variety from a slate of hobbyist developers. Want to know more? Hey, great! Conveniently we have more article to read if you just keep scrolling a little bit.

The Evercade Indie Heroes Collection 2 cartridge compiles games that appeared on the Evercade VS as monthly bonuses. While that was a nice little digital treat, Evercade fans (and the games’ developers) probably appreciate the more permanent physical nature of a cartridge release. (Also, it’s entirely possible that this was the plan all along? In which case the Game of the Month thing seems like savvy marketing.)

Our favorite title in the bunch might be Lowtek Games’ Tapeworm Disco Puzzle. In this game, you’re extending and maneuvering a worm to collect various items. It felt a lot like Blazing Rangers without the time pressure. And in a compilation with nearly a dozen options for action? It was nice to catch our breath and think through solutions.

While all the games have ended up on the Evercade, they were built for a variety of retro platforms. This includes two Game Boy titles: Lunar Journey and Gelatinous: Humanity Lost. These especially test the creators’ ability to build within constraints, as already-limiting old console specs are about as simple as they can get on the venerable green-tinged brick. Lunar Journey is essentially a point-and-click adventure. In it, you find items to solve whimsical problems and let you progress on your mission to collect resources on the moon. Gelatinous is a platformer with some real Metroid II vibes, in of ability acquisition, level design and Game Boy-era “cinematic” presentation.

On the other end of things, no included title pushes visuals as much as Eyra, The Crow Maiden. Which is weird, given the game’s origins! What was once an NES project also saw ports to 16-bit systems through crowdfunding stretch goals, and the Genesis build is what appears in this collection. We suppose this meant the focus really was on the visual differences. The result is a very saturated, detailed world for some very classic-feeling platforming. It’s interesting to see a game look like this but deliver more plodding, NES-style movement and attacks! It worked enough for us, though.

The game count gets a little fuzzy with the inclusion of the Cowlitz Gamers Adventure and Gruniożerca trilogies. These two “games” from developers Lukasz Kur and M-Tee each offer a variety of experiences within the same shared theme and world. We’re particularly fond of the second and third Gruniożerca games! These are two very different approaches to block traversal puzzles. You hop around as a guinea pig, placing and removing limited blocks in 2 and stepping on them a certain number of times in 3. The Cowlitz games are screen-based collection platformers, with the scale and co-op approach of the last two feeling quite Bubble Bobble-like.

It will surprise absolutely no one to learn that many people who love retro games enough to make one of their own are big fans of Zelda. Two games in the collection, Anguna: Scourge of the Goblin King and Reknum Souls Adventure, seek to iterate on those sorts of ideas. Anguna takes the dungeon format and adds stats and experience. Reknum has a full Hyrule-esque overworld, as well as some side-scrolling sequences. If you’re more into the exploration and mysteries part of Zelda? Reknum has you covered. Less talking, more slashing? Try Anguna.

Nix: The Paradox Relic could be of interest, too, which we’d quickly describe as NES Metroid starring the Star Fox cast. Also included in the collection are Nessy the Robot, Beer Slinger, and Yeah Yeah Beebiss II.

As with other Evercade carts, Indie Heroes 2 includes a full-color manual explaining the games’ basics and developer origins. With a pack like this, that’s especially nice! Often, knowing the story behind an indie new-retro game makes playing a lot more fun. Also, the extra bit of credit for the people who did all the hard work? It’s probably appreciated.

The Evercade Indie Heroes Collection 2 cartridge launches January 31, 2023. It s a library of dozens of compilations for the platform. Want a closer look at those? Check out our Evercade archive.

The post Evercade’s Indie Heroes 2 Puts the Spotlight on Creativity Within Constraints appeared first on Siliconera.

A little over a year ago, we took a look at the games available on the Evercade platform at the time of the launch of the Evercade VS home system. Since then, there’s been a big focus on arcade releases in the Evercade lineup, as almost a dozen cartridges have ed the library. We’ve been checking out the most recent collections, and we’re ready to guide you to the best Evercade VS and Evercade EXP games to start in 2023!

The Best New-Retro Evercade VS and Evercade EXP Games 4m6p2g

One great er of the Evercade has been the new-retro community. And with good reason! More players and a physical cartridge release have undeniable appeal. Picking the best example of this is a tough choice with so many options. Still, we think the Alwa’s Awakening / Cathedral dual pack is the best place to start. The two are a good pairing for a number of reasons, starting with both appealing to the same sort of player. They’re about exploring and collecting and generally spending time in an action platforming world.

How they get there is different, though. Cathedral, which has seen release on modern platforms as well, is the Evercade’s first and so far only native port. The emulation on the Evercade devices is fine, but seeing something run natively and fill the screen shows just how good things could be. We know the work is probably a real barrier. Nevertheless, more native ports of games with old aesthetics would be wonderful.

Alwa’s Awakening gets there the other way around. Rather than a native port, the version here is the one developer Elden Pixels crafted specifically for the NES. The original game certainly felt like it wanted to be like those games! Building specifically for that spec, though, gives it just a bit more authenticity.

For more: We talked about it in our previous version of this guide, but Mega Cat Studios Collection 2 continues to find its way back into the cartridge slot through its innovative ideas and pure gameplay variety! And stay tuned for our focused look on the first new collection of 2023, Indie Heroes Collection 2, soon.

The Best Japanese Evercade VS and Evercade EXP Games 5c351l

This is one area in which Blaze Entertainment’s licensing team has really been putting in some work. And, of course, around here? We’re grateful for that. It’s been great to see the continued dedication to preserving and showcasing the platform’s local United Kingdom developers, but adding more Japanese studios broadens Evercade’s appeal.

They’re still doing things the Evercade way, though, with libraries full of games unlikely to get these collections elsewhere. It’s certainly hard not to miss some bigger releases, but those are far more likely to be on Nintendo Switch Online or dedicated microconsoles. A great recent example: Jaleco Arcade 1! You may have played a few of these, but 64th Street: A Detective Story has a hard time making compilations over something like Final Fight and Rod Land has to deal with competition like Bubble Bobble. Here, though, they feel special. And they also bring the distinctive Japanese feel that a retro platform needs.

For more: We took a deeper dive into Irem Arcade 1, Toaplan Arcade 1 and the EXP’s built-in Capcom titles in our review of the new handheld. The Technos and Data East arcade collections also have a lot to like. And, well, there are some interesting ones in our next pick...

The Best Single-Player Evercade VS and Evercade EXP Games 1o1z2j

With both quality and variety in spades, Renovation Collection 1 is arguably the best cartridge available for the Evercade platform. The publisher is known for picking up and releasing many of the deeper cuts of the Sega Genesis library. These came both from its parent company, Telenet Japan, and other developers. With a few small exceptions, this collection is dedicated to solo play, with a host of shoot-’em-up and RPG titles to keep you playing for quite a while.

Included in Renovation Collection 1 are some choice titles from revered studio Wolf Team. Like RPG Arcus Odyssey! And action-platformer El Viento! Oh, and Dino Land, a quirky pinball game that’s a lot more fun than you’d think? There’s a reason people love the Wolf Team library so intensely, and though we love the Tales franchise around here, it’s nice to see the genre variety of the studio’s early days.

For more: The library is expanding and covering up a lot more of its genre weaknesses, but Codemasters Collection 1 and Piko Interactive Collection 1 still offer a good variety. There are also some fun inclusions in the new Gremlin Collection 1, even including a soccer management game.

The Best Multiplayer Evercade VS Games 53p6a

There are tons of great two-player options for Evercade VS play, bolstered by the growing Arcade cartridge line. Somewhat more elusive is a good four-player centerpiece for party play. Enter Morphcat Games Collection 1, with its two Micro Mages campaigns.

While Micro Mages’ aesthetic may initially remind players of TowerFall, its dedicated co-op approach lends it a different feel. Those titular “micro” mages aren’t just personality; making them so small lets worlds be much larger than you’re used to seeing from an NES game, and two whole campaigns mean you’ll be playing for a while.

For more: All the Arcade collections offer some fun titles! And you can’t go too wrong with a few rounds of Worms.

The Evercade EXP handheld retails for $149.99, with the IREM Arcade 1 cart and built-in Capcom titles. The Evercade VS home system is also still available. For more coverage on the Blaze Evercade ecosystem and its games, check out our archive.

The post Evercade VS and Evercade EXP Games: The Best of the Platform So Far appeared first on Siliconera.

Blaze Entertainment announced that the Evercade VS will now offer a Game of the Month feature involving free indie games. Starting on April 8, 2022, console owners get one free game to play each month. Each one will eventually appear on Indie Heroes Collection 2. Things are kicking off with Tapeworm Disco Puzzle.

Here's a closer look at Tapeworm Disco Puzzle. In it, players help a tapeworm in a cassette tape collect musical notes in each level. While the official description for it showed it as a two-player game and the Evercade VS is known for multiplayer, its description says it is a single-player experience.
[gallery columns="5" ids="922848,922849,922850,922851,922852" link="file"]

People will only be able to play the game on their Evercade VS until May 7, 2022. After that, the next Game of the Month will go live with the next firmware update. While save states can be made for all Game of the Month titles while they are available, they won’t work after they leave. The saves aren’t compatible with Indie Heroes Collection 2.

Evercade VS is available in North America and Europe, and Tapeworm Disco Puzzle is the April 2022 Game of the Month. People will be able to play it until May 7, 2022.

The post Evercade VS Game of the Month Gives People Free Games in 2022 appeared first on Siliconera.

The release of the Evercade VS is a promising time to dig into Blaze Entertainment’s increasingly large library of retro compilation cartridges. But with dozens of cartridges that each contain a whole pack of games, it can be sort of intimidating to start! There've been a lot of new games since launch. We’re here to help with some handy recommendations!

The Best New-Retro Evercade and Evercade VS Games 196i21

To us, the most special part of the Evercade game library is its selection of newly developed games. While many of them have seen limited physical releases on the original hardware, for most? This is the first chance to play them. (And a much more affordable proposition than individual reproduction-style carts, for sure!)

Two recent releases top the list: Mega Cat Studios Collection 2 and Indie Heroes Collection 1. The second Mega Cat Studios cart leans heavily into puzzle games, platformers, and, well, puzzle-platformers! These games lean into the Evercade’s strengths and away from its weaknesses. They’re good for carrying around on a handheld or talking through with others on your TV, leaving room for other life activities. And while Evercade’s input lag is reasonably minimal, avoiding the need for frame-accurate timing always helps.

Indie Heroes appears to be Blaze’s attempt to expand access to even smaller teams. It’s a truly packed cart, with 14 games from a host of developers. These are all over the place! In platform, in genre and honestly also in level of quality. But it’s a delight to sift through these, and to see them in such a legitimate commercial release.

For more: See XenoCrisis & Tanglewood for a two-pack of particularly high-quality modern retrogames, and the first Mega Cat Studios Collection for a more action-focused offering from the publisher.

The Best Japanese Evercade and Evercade VS Games 3y263a

This is Siliconera, after all, and we know most of you are here for our Japanese game industry expertise. While Evercade most certainly embraces its roots with a veritable smorgasbord of British developers, there are still some appearances from Japan-based studios.

Technos Arcade 1 is the latest of these. The developer was known for its beat-’em-ups, and that’s definitely reflected here. The two included Double Dragon games and Combatribes are classic entries in the genre, and translate well here. Still, there’s variety too! Like the top-down puzzling of Block Out.

We also have a lot of love for Data East Collection 1. This console game bundle is headlined by Magical Drop II, a strong and memorable entry in a top-ten puzzler franchise. We also had a lot more fun than we expected while revisiting Side Pocket.

For more: Data East Arcade 1 has some more entertaining beat-’em-ups and the arcade version of the first Magical Drop (dubbed Chain Reaction in the West). There’s also Jaleco Collection 1 and Technos Collection 1 for home releases, and we’d recommend the latter if those games hadn’t been released almost everywhere in recent years. (For the sake of thoroughness, we’ll also mention the two Namco Museum collections, but two caveats apply. One, they’re not licensed for home use and only play on the handheld. Two, they’re the Famicom versions of these games, and generally not the versions you want to play.)

The Best Single-Player Evercade and Evercade VS Games 4j5t6c

Retro libraries are regularly full of games that are fun for short bursts or with friends. So it’s a bit harder to find some games to settle in and play a while solo in the Evercade library!

Our first choice for that, then, is Piko Interactive Collection 1. There’s some truly weird stuff on this cart, but its RPGs have some engaging elements. Brave Battle Saga and Canon — Legends of the New Gods are the sort of games you can play now and feel like you’re back in 1994, trying a new game knowing nothing about it but the box art. And the rest of the release is full of games that take a lot of sitting with them and exploring to make more sense.

Another solid bet is Codemasters Collection 1, with its offering of Sensible Software releases. Cannon Fodder and Mega Lo Mania are very tactical games, and they’re still different enough from modern strategy games to be worth a try today.

For more: We can definitely recommend Mega Cat Studios Collection 2 again, with its compelling puzzle titles. Atari Lynx Collection 2 might be worth it just for Chip’s Challenge.

The Best Multiplayer Evercade VS Games 53p6a

There are four controller ports on the Evercade VS, and if you want to use ‘em? You’ll need to scrounge up a few more pads (it’s reasonably compatible with a lot) and scour the library for the right games. There are a lot of two-player games! And the included controllers will cover those. But let’s look past that to three- and four-player action.

Codemasters was well-known for pioneering four-player games early, both in building hardware augmentation and publishing software to accompany it. Codemasters Collection 1 contains three of these games, including Super Skidmarks and Psycho Pinball. It does seem like a lot of Codemasters’ most iconic fare (hi, Micro Machines!) might be tougher to license, but there are loopholes, like including a pre-licensing version of Pete Sampras Tennis.

And hey, even if you don’t have extra controllers, you can check out Worms Collection 1. Early console Worms games did have a bit of friction in the controls to overcome, and that’s the case in both the original and Armageddon in this collection. But it’s still Worms, and that means it’s still a lot of fun.

For more: There are a few other options scattered through the library. As for highlights, Atari Arcade 1 offers four-player Warlords! And Technos Arcade 1 has three-player options for Combatribes and Double Dragon 3.

Evercade VS, from Blaze Entertainment, is available for pre-order now for $99.99 / £89.99 / €99.99. The Pack, with an extra controller and cartridge included, is available for an additional $30 / £20 / €30. Cartridges are $19.99 / £14.99 / €17.99 each. Units will begin shipping in mid-December in Europe and January 2022 in North America. The original Evercade handheld is out now for $59.99 / £79.99 / €69.99.

The post Evercade and Evercade VS Games: What You Should Play appeared first on Siliconera.

Evercade VS, the new console from Blaze Entertainment, seeks to expand the footprint for its effort to bring back classic games. It tries to do specific things! It’s not a replacement for an emulation box or a full-featured console competitor. It’s a fun little package of nostalgia, and it needs a matching level of affinity for the old ways to be a great fit. But if that’s you? Yeah, it’s worth a look.

The first Evercade hardware was a handheld, and in many ways incomplete on its own. It worked, and it was fun! But its video out had a few quirks that made it less than ideal, and a lot of the Evercade library is best experienced with a partner.

Evercade VS uses the same library of cartridges, which is really the core of what Blaze Entertainment is trying to do. Game collections are sold as physical carts in plastic cases with full-color manuals. Having so many titles in one pack does limit how much manual space each gets, for sure. But each has screenshots, control diagrams and a brief summary of the game and its history. This is a system for collectors, and one for those who miss sitting in the back seat on the way home unwrapping a brand-new game.

This idea gets doubled down with the Evercade VS. That’s largely from the much more robust menu system. While the handheld is functional, its UI is barebones and it saves its processing power for games. The VS has a bit more room, so it shows box art in the menus and puts that control diagram and summary on each game screen before you launch.

Speaking of doubling down: the VS already had a two-player-friendly library, but Blaze’s new arcade line reinforces that strength. More puzzle games! More beat-’em-ups! Evercade’s game selection is full of “pretty good” games, missing the expensive-to-license heavy hitters but with some similar stuff you’ve played and some weird things you could try. The result? More of a popcorn-style, channel-surfing sort of play session.

It does feel like Evercade as a platform is meant to be a celebration of the British scene. There are some appearances from Japanese and American classics, but there’s so much depth to the UK-developed portion of the library. That tracks! Blaze is British. But it does mean that an affinity for that era makes picking up the console a lot more enticing.

The hardware driving the Evercade VS tries to do a lot with a little. It’s aiming for a low MSRP, coming in at under $100 for the base package. The global shipping and chip crises probably made that a whole mess! So it cuts some stuff you probably already have, like HDMI cables and a USB power adapter. And it won’t emulate as well as a full-on computer. But it does its job fairly well! Like the handheld, it does hiccup at times when running its (quite infrequent) PlayStation and GBA games. And it doesn’t have the most impressive scaling for big screens. But most of the time, it’s solid enough to focus on the games themselves.

In of running the games themselves, there aren't too many bells and whistles, but Evercade VS covers the basics. You can expand the screen to maintain aspect ratio but fill the height of the screen, or you can use "pixel perfect" mode to maintain an exact multiple. (You can also stretch a game wide to fill your whole TV, but anyone who actually does this should be reported to the proper authorities.) There are a couple of options for scanlines, and a handful of bezel wallpaper choices.

The most interesting feature of the Evercade VS hardware... isn't really on the Evercade VS hardware at all. Much like classic games, Evercade cartridges save their own data. This means that, with your hard saves and save states, you can them back and forth between cartridge and handheld with no hassle. While, yeah, this has been the case since the first system's launch, it's now relevant and useful.

The included controller feels a lot like the handheld! Just a little more compact. It tries to split the difference between classic and comfortable, with a squared-off form factor more like an NES controller but rounded edges and four shoulder buttons. It works well enough, but the disc-shaped D-pad and lighter, clickier feel might not match everyone’s tastes. And even if you do like the controller, you might want to scrounge up more for a multiplayer session.

Thankfully, the Evercade VS doesn’t put up too many barriers to using whatever you can plug into a USB port. It recognizes them much like a PC, and you can expect similar functionality. You can even use wireless ones, if you happen to have adapters for them. There’s a quick process to map the buttons on any controller, and you can skip mapping buttons a controller doesn't have without much trouble. You'll have to do that with every new pad you use, but it re the configuration for each between sessions. (A special shout-out goes to our trusty Pokken controller, which got us through a lot of this review.)

Blaze is clearly treating the Evercade project as a labor of love. It's opening its doors to tiny indies and newly developed titles. It's releasing collections from the Oliver Twins and Bitmap Brothers and other cult-favorite UK teams. It even put out tributes to the Atari Lynx when no one else would. And it looks like that's going to continue, with a Telenet Japan cart on the way. We can feel this enthusiasm in the system itself, and it makes us really want these efforts to succeed.

Evercade VS is an interesting standalone product, but the big sell is the platform as a whole. Its fun lies in its physicality. Its quirk is its appeal. It doesn’t have the universal giftability of the microconsoles of recent years — at least outside the British Isles — but for those who enjoy shelves lined with game boxes, it could be a good fit.

Evercade VS, from Blaze Entertainment, is available for pre-order now for $99.99 / £89.99 / €99.99. The Pack, with an extra controller and cartridge included, is available for an additional $30 / £20 / €30. Cartridges are $19.99 / £14.99 / €19.99 each. Units will begin shipping in mid-December in Europe and January 2022 in North America.

The post Review: Evercade VS Brings its Retro Cartridge Library to the Big Screen appeared first on Siliconera.

Evercade VS, a new TV-based console that plays existing Evercade cartridges, was announced by publisher Blaze Entertainment. The new system will release on November 3, 2021.

Retailing for £89.99/$99.99/€99.99, the new Evercade VS system allows for multiplayer action with the game’s cartridge-based collections. Official Evercade controllers resemble the handheld but add a few buttons (and the handheld itself can function as an extra controller in a pinch). Evercade VS also s third-party controllers like the Xbox Adaptive Controller and 8bitdo’s gamepad line.

You can watch the Evercade VS announcement trailer below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdUEBPScfGk
 

The main selling point of the Evercade VS is its compatibility with the existing Evercade library. This includes more than 260 titles, such as new retrogames like Tanglewood, classic collections from Technos and Jaleco and even a suite of Atari Lynx games. These cartridges save game states, so you can transfer your progress between the two systems. Two carts are incompatible, however. The two Namco Museum collections, which were only licensed for handheld play, therefore aren't playable on the VS.

Among the Evercade VS’ unique features are two cartridge slots to reduce the need to swap. It also includes TV-specific resolution options for players to customize the display and presentation. Additionally, it sports built-in Wi-Fi for firmware updates. The Evercade handheld does include a limited video out function, but doesn’t allow for additional controllers or display options. As part of this announcement, Blaze said the handheld will be updated to add many of the interface features later in 2021.

You can check out renders of the Evercade VS in the gallery below. You can also screenshots of its new interface. For example, these include a look at the system options and a glimpse at the new visual presentation.

[gallery ids="880896,880895,880894,880893,880892,880888,880887,880886,880885" link="file"]

Preorders for the Evercade VS console will open on May 28, 2021. The base configuration, the Starter Pack, includes one controller and one to-be-announced game. Also available will be a Pack with two games and controllers. Additionally, a Special Edition, with a unique color scheme, will be revealed at a later date. However, none of these options include a USB power adapter or HDMI cable. Blaze said this was done to reduce the console’s price, as most players have these already.

Evercade VS will launch on November 3, 2021. New Evercade cartridges like Intellivision Collection 1 Mega Cat Studios Collection 2 are also on the way.

The post Evercade VS Expands its Retro Library to the TV in November 2021 appeared first on Siliconera.