gru:Bz

Ever since I picked up my R36S handheld a few months ago, I’ve been obsessed with these Chinese emulator consoles. They’re tiny Linux computers that can run anything from the Atari 2600 up to Nintendo DS and even ports of more modern PC games like Stardew Valley.

Some of the higher end ones can dual boot Linux and Android and they have absolutely insane specs, so you can run the latest and greatest Android games and more modern emulators too.

I’m more into late 90’s and early 2000’s era games though.

Stuff like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Metroid Fusion, Squaresoft RPG’s from back in the day and romhacks like Super Junkoid and The Legend of Zelda: Parallel Worlds. Nostalgia will always be around to keep people coming back to decades old consoles and romhacks that feel like long lost AAA titles aren’t in short supply either.

I recently upgraded to a better quality Anbernic device and I’ve been hopelessly addicted to the thing for the last week or so. They have a ton of different options, but I’m mostly into JRPGs and Metroidvanias, so I went for the RG35XXSP without the analog sticks:

It’s totally a knockoff of the Gameboy Advance SP, that’s what I absolutely love about it, and it plays up to Dreamcast and PS1 titles with no trouble whatsoever. All of these things use generic lithium polymer batteries but they hold a charge longer than my new OLED Switch even. They ship with a shitload of questionable roms complete with the box art, and a kinda janky Linux based stock OS, but there are quite a few different options in the way of third party open source distros. And I’m bigger on curating my own collection of games rather than dumping entire console libraries onto my sd card.

I tried muOS for a couple days but it was like the Arch Linux equivalent of SoC gaming distros where I’m more of an Ubuntu guy, so I ended up settling on Knulli. It can run emulators, PC ports and even has Python built in, so you can run PyGame stuff on it too. It has WiFi and a scraper built right in, so with a little patience, you can scan your sdcard and pull all the box art and other metadata from Screenscraper and beautify your ROM library.

The R36S is a cheap, generic console you can pick up online anywhere from like $15 to $50 depending on where you order. Half of the time you’ll end up with an underwhelming knockoff if you don’t know what to look out for. If nothing else, it’s a great gateway into the world of portable emulation.

It’s got nothing on the Anbernic devices though. They do all come with shit tier micro sd’s that you’ll want to immediately replace, but other than that, Anbernic’s quality is unreal. These legit feel like something Nintendo or Sony could’ve built themselves and sold for $300 a piece. Luckily most of the Gameboy style ones are between $40 and $100 depending on what you want to get out of it.

They’re perfect for slacking at the office or staying up until 3am playing obscure platformers you didn’t even know existed when they were still relevant. I’ve been really into the Pico-8 fantasy console lately also. It’s been around for over a decade, but development is still going strong and it’s a perfect platform for these devices that doesn’t require pirating copyrighted material linking up your totally legally purchased cartridges to your PC and dumping the ROMs.

Back in the day, like wayyy back when I was playing Chrono Trigger and and watching Lost for the first time on my softmodded OG Xbox, I never would’ve imagined something like this would ever exist. Emulation is such a legal grey area I didn’t think we’d ever see a more commercial side of it where you have almost 1:1 Gameboy clones and full on Linux distros on handhelds… I mean shit, even the Steam Deck is just a fancy handheld PC that runs on KDE Neon.

This stuff checks so many nerd boxes like Linux, open source, retro gaming and nostalgic hardware that feels like you stepped into a time machine and bought it at Toys R Us during Black Friday ‘99.

I used to think emulation was pure nostalgia, but the more I get into it the more I realize it’s about preserving and enjoying amazing works of art that would have otherwise fallen off the face of the earth years ago. Sure, there are (increasingly less) second hand, Video Trader type stores that sell aging hardware and the games for it. But if you want it fresh in the box, you’re paying thousands of dollars and the original devs or even manufacturers aren’t getting a cut of the revenue either way.

I look at it like a questionable way to enjoy Mozart and Picasso level interactive art for decades to come. The portable console era is just icing on the top.