Evercade

Good job I came on here as heading to GAME who have the Nacmo ones for £13 - 20% off = £10.40 that I would have bought them, the Oliver Twins Collection is the same price, I don't have real knowledge of Dizzy which is either a good thing of these are new to me or bad thing as NOstalgia for them.

That's one of the reasons C64, Atari and Intellevision Collections aren't on my list as of wants NOstalgia and likes of the upcoming Sunsoft one just look meh for £18, still think including all the coming soon carts thinks there's 47, and I've got a list of 26 (+ I own 5 carts) which I'm not going to go out of way to get more if I see in GAME, CEX, indie store and a good price as not sure are worth £18.

I'll let you know what I get.

Edit got from what was left that is playable, and not like Atari 2600 games

Oliver Collection, which for £10.40 for 11 games worth a punt
Piko 3
Worms
Gaelco Arcade 1

Brings me to 9 games and do have around £2 of reward in GAME, so may see if I can order Codemasters or something.

TCK wrote:

Aye that’s true. If Monster Hunter were either a 16-bit caveman 2D platformer or an hour-long Golden Axe clone, I’d have been co-hosting Monster Mash with you.

I'd play the shit out of a game like that as well.

Well that's one more summer games showcase I've watched then!

I dunno, it's difficult because I love the idea of these old games being celebrated; Nintendo are doing better, but outside of e.g. Pilotwings 64's tongue-in-cheek advert, it tends to be just a raw game footage of games you've never heard of - so I do appreciate the effort that Showcase went into. Getting excited about the Delphine collection, which are games that really stood out as classics, yeah I'm totally on board with that. I was going to joke "let me know when they announce the Hewson collection" but that's what the C64 collection is. Er... let me know when they announce the Cryo Interative collection

But straight off the bat having two separate SKUs for Duke Nukem Collections 1 and 2... this whole system still feels like this should have just been a publisher curating these things, like e.g. Hamster do with the arcade classics.

Maybe if all of Duke was on one cart they'ed want like £30 for it, why sold as two or can't fit on one cart.

The folks working at Blaze Entertainment have commented a few times about how the small storage space on these cartridges limits what they can include on a single collection. I remember one of their senior designers commenting on Discord that the reason the Gremlin Collection has two PlayStation games, two Mega Drive games, a SNES game and a Game Boy game is because no other combination of games available for license would fit together with the Evercade’s small memory capacity – an example they gave was that they couldn’t have Actua Golf without losing both Actua Soccer and Hardcore 4x4.

I can kind of excuse the Duke Nukem Collections here, there’s three PlayStation games on top of a GBA one and some MS-DOS remasters too. That doesn’t excuse the likes of the Sunsoft collection though. In all truth there’s been a few Evercade collections where I’ve thought that they'd certainly had the memory space and budget to be a bit more generous and include an additional two or three games.

Jimbob wrote:

But straight off the bat having two separate SKUs for Duke Nukem Collections 1 and 2... this whole system still feels like this should have just been a publisher curating these things, like e.g. Hamster do with the arcade classics.

I feel the same way. I like things about the Evercade as a whole and especially appreciate it as a celebration of old games, but on balance I’d prefer what you say. Or, even better, to go back to the days where you’d have a load of games on one disc and on all consoles. We were spoiled rotten by Midway Arcade Treasures, Taito Legends, SNK Arcade Classics and the likes back in the 2000s.

Played some more EC this afternoon including the monthly game which you get on VS or EXP, from the info I'm seeing once all the games are done it get put on indie collection 3. Which is great for people with a OG Evercade or I liked BIG2SMALL and might want to play more of it.

Sure I can buy that on GB, N64 or DC but that's $25-45 on its own compared to it on one cart with a bunch more for £18.

Now looking forward, see what July game is.

Blaze Entertainment announced the first product from the Evercade’s sister company, HyperMegaTech:



Aye, that’s just an Evercade again but with a new name - and essentially Blaze Entertainment’s fourth retro gaming hardware release in three-and-a-half years. That’s well cheeky.

On one hand the price, the good quality of the built-in games, the improved screen, the two additional shoulder buttons and the past/future Evercade cartridge compatibility make this something that I’ll likely buy when it comes out, probably the Taito one. At the very least it should be an inexpensive upgrade on my utterly knackered original Evercade from 2020.

On the other hand, I expressed something of a concern on the previous page about games being built-in and digital only:

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

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.

Will there be a Super Pocket for every partner publisher who doesn’t allow their games released physically on Evercade cartridges? The Super Pocket surely only exists because of licensing problems such as that. That’s mince for me and many others, who bought their Evercade(s) and want all the games on it. And what if you’re wanting collections by Capcom and Taito, are they expecting you to buy a new handheld each time?

I've been looking at picking the Exp because of Capcom, the Namco games and having a nice handheld Evercade. Those cost about £100 on eBay, this at half the price is tempting.

Though screen likely better on EXP, it has internet for monthly games, Capcom line up maybe different.

Today was the second Evercade Showcase which was an indie special


The Indie Computer Collection looks a tad meh, part from Citadel Remonstered and Tanks Fury.

The two new double packs, I'me keen on the one with Goodboy Galaxy, which I guess is like a new GBA game.

Then the big one, the first single cart and a special edition available Full Void that has just came out on steam which it has a 92% very positive but on Metacritic just a 66 from 4 reviews, from the trailer with the cutscenes etc looks cool.

I’m a bit mixed on that Showcase yesterday. I don’t like the direction of travel that they’re going with single carts, though it’s felt a bit inevitable that it would happen sooner or later. I’m surprised that they’re devoting it to Full Void, a fairly unheralded and niche indie game that doesn’t look like it’s proven to be that popular elsewhere. I thought it would have been a more eagerly awaited title such as Mega Cat Studio’s WrestleQuest, or a big-name RPG that justifies the cartridge space and cost. Fair dos, Full Void looks pretty good and it’s a major coup for its developer to have it spotlighted in this fashion. Truthfully though, it’s not a game I (or I think many others) would have paid much if any attention to in any other setting.

Special Editions is riddy behaviour, I didn’t expect it and I didn’t want it. It’s unnecessary in this case and a pretty poor and low-effort offering for the extras. There’s no chance I’m buying that for £24.99. The standard £17.99 would be a fair price for the single game, sleeve, artbook, comic, stickers and poster combined in my opinion, an extra eight quid is a scadge.

When I first saw ‘Home Computer Heroes’ flash up on the screen, straight away thought ‘ugh, that sounds pish’. When I realised it was just seven games I then thought ‘ugh, that reeks of pish too’. That said, when they explored the games a little further it looked more interesting than I thought it would or could be. It’s not exactly scoring high on the old NGamer Magazine Hype-o-Meter though. Seven games of this type feels stingy.

On a more positive note I’m up for December’s dual-cartridge games. I liked the look of Goodboy Galaxy when it was first announced in a Kickstarter campaign a couple of years back, it’s good to get that here. Witch n’ Wiz has been on Antstream Arcade for yonks but I thought it had ‘FUTURE EVERCADE RELEASE’ written all over it in big multicoloured letters. It looks all right, albeit just the same as about twenty other indie Evercade games.

Besides Tears of the Kingdom and Super Mario World, Demons of Asteborg is the best game I’ve finished this year – I thought it was absolutely brilliant. I would definitely have bought it’s sequel Astebros on the strength of that, so I’m happy to see them bundled together here.

That’s them (presumably) announced everything for 2023:



Ten cartridges and two Super Pocket consoles could mean that it’s a very expensive five months for Evercade collectors. I won’t bother with the Super Pocket: Capcom Edition and I can’t see myself rushing to pre-order Home Computer Heroes, Full Void or Sunsoft Collection 1. I’ve got looooooooow expectations for PIKO Arcade Collection 1 but I’m happy to give new games a try. As for everything else, aye, I’m reasonably satisfied.

More arcade collections in 2024 please.

I certainly wouldn't have paid attention to Full Void if just on STEAM, that the spotlight put here on Evercade, which I'm keen on.

There’s no point in spamming this thread with every morsel of Evercade news on announcement, but lots has happened over the last couple of days. I feel this in particular has the potential to be an interesting development:

https://twitter.com/evercaderetro/status/1779857332068876468

 
I like that they recognise that “the scope of what our fans want to play (is becoming) more recent” and that they’re preparing for “larger and more retro games” to be playable. The utter landfill that’s on some of these recent Evercade cartridges only serves to bulk the game quantity up while dragging the overall cartridge quality down; I hope Evercade is moving past the days of licensing unplayable 8-bit guff that was known to be terrible even on its original release. Giga Carts are certainly welcome news at a time where many – myself included – were getting scunnered with the volume of inexpensive-to-license and not-much-fun Commodore 64 collections they were pumping out. I’ve long felt that the well of interesting and appealing licensable games from the ‘80s and first half of the ‘90s is running dry, and I think they’re right to move onto new gaming generations.
 
I hope that they’re allocating their budget towards better quality licenses. It was heavily rumoured for a while that the PS1’s Tomb Raider games had been prepared for redistribution on the likes of Anstream and PlayStation Plus Premium – it’s good to see that was true and that the original trilogy is on the way to Evercade. It’s perhaps not as exciting an announcement as it would have been pre-Remastered releases, but it’s a collection that’ll certainly gather interest all the same. I think it’s a bit of a coup for Blaze Entertainment too; Tomb Raider was massive back in the day, and the definition of a ‘better quality license’. Otherwise, there’s new ground to cover with some of their other partners, such as the disc-based and 64-bit games from the likes of Interplay, Irem and Gremlin Interactive. What’s most likely however is yet more Piko Interactive stuff, mash-ups of the various PS1 and N64 properties that they own. I think they own the Fear Effect series and it’s games now, so place your bets that they’ll come to Evercade.
 
They’ll need to get a move on with announcing their own news in the future though, as that’s the fourth or fifth time that a retailer has leaked their upcoming software and hardware. Pulled Amazon listings confirmed not only another Commodore 64 collection to go alongside Tomb Raider Collection, but also the Evercade Vs.-R and EXP-R. I assumed it made them chuck together a quick preview video that broadcast today:

https://twitter.com/evercaderetro/status/1780223682092175485?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

 
…these are just the existing consoles but with less stuff? The ‘new lower price’ angle doesn’t really mean much with the EXP, it’s been on sale for around that price most places for a while and with Irem and Capcom games bundled with it. The Vs. has been even cheaper than that, and that came with two different games and two controllers. I know that the Technos Japan and Capcom licenses ran out and therefore new hardware bundles were inevitable, but still, as a mid-term reiteration these don’t offer enough.

I like the colour schemes of the R system's but as you say they've got less stuff with them now. Does make me wonder what the other two hardware things on the road map are, special editions maybe or super pockets?

As the GIGA cart, only the one has leaked being Tomb Raider, which I'm not really bothered about. So will wait and see what the other one they have is, seen few things it might be Legacy of Kain because I guess Crystal Dynamics have the IP not Square.

That's just made think of some hardware, copies of dualshocks for these games.

masofdas wrote:

seen few things it might be Legacy of Kain

Now that'd make me get one of these Evercades.

(I typed this partly in response to the both of youse, but the multi-quote button isn't working as it should, so apologies)


A more powerful twin-stick handheld is what I’d have liked to have seen, although that might be something to come in a couple of years’ time.
 
What they’re releasing this July appears to be different to what’s already available in only a cosmetic sense, which feels like an opportunity missed as well as just a bit pointless overall. Bundling Tomb Raider with both of them is daft. If you’re buying both systems why would you want two copies of Tomb Raider? They've been asked that question yet they're not answering it.


Thinking about it, that VS-R bundle is especially poor value comparative to the current Vs. bundle too. For £109.99 today you get the console, two pads, two Arcade collections and all the cables, whereas from July you’re losing a pad, a collection and an HDMI cable with only a ten quid reduction.
 
Conversely, I think the Super Pocket is impressively well done, well worth £50 and I’d recommend owning one to all. I think we’ll see two more Super Pockets later in the year, and I hope they’ve got something big in store for them. SEGA and Konami are the two versions everybody wants, but I think they’re unlikely. I can’t think of anything else that’s much likelier though. Taking a guess, I’d think they’d maybe do a couple for game franchises as opposed to game companies, like they’ve done for Duke Nukem and Worms. Maybe a blue and white one for Mega Man? 
 
Something else I’d seen this week is that Factor 5 have licensed a few of their non-Star Wars Amiga and DOS games to Antstream. Whatever winds up there eventually seems to come to Evercade, and vice versa.
 
There was a joint-press release saying that there’ll be more Crystal Dynamics collections in the future. Tomb Raider Collection 2 with the remaining PS1 games and a handful of Game Boy Colour/Advance games appears to be an odds-on bet, but Legacy of Kain and Gex seem obvious shouts too.

Yeah that is daft as if I only had a VS then the EXP-R with TR is fine or vice versa. Yet a Jas who's new to this as you say won't want two copies of TR, maybe one of the upcoming hardware things is some bundle with the VS&EXP bundled together.

Evercade’s Alpha teaser ended up being for a couple of bartop arcades that they’re releasing in November.

I think that a bartop arcade that has an expandable Evercade cartridge library an interesting-ish idea. I hope this is a commitment to them bringing out more Arcade/purple box Evercade cartridges. Most of the ten Arcade compilations they've released so far are among the best in the whole Evercade range. I’d very much like to try the Evercade Alpha, or at least see it in action.

That said, it feels like it’s a couple of years late to market. Bartop arcades are commonplace nowadays, and potential buyers are well aware if they’ve got the space for them or not. I don’t think the built-in games sell it either. After the Evercade EXP and Super Pocket: Capcom Edition, this is the third time that Blaze Entertainment have used the Capcom license, and the third time that several of these games have appeared on their hardware. These aren’t uncommon, unearthed or even ‘unplayable’ games either, they’re available on loads of non-Evercade systems. It’s disappointing that they didn’t host all twelve of these games in one Capcom-branded Alpha and acquire another license for the other Alpha. And while there’s many Home Computer games that will work well with the arcade set-up, I have to think that the majority of console games will become a much poorer experience because of it. At least you can plug in a control pad I suppose.

The main thing is the cost. When I watched that trailer and saw the £199.99 pre-order price, I let out an audible ‘naw’. So there’s that too.

I don’t think I’ll have a difficult decision to make when pre-orders go live. I really like my Super Pocket and the Vs. is perfectly capable of all the things that the Super Pocket isn’t. The Alpha is nice but it’s not at all essential, it doesn’t do enough different or add enough new for me.

On a related topic, Evercade recently announced that they’ve sold their one millionth cartridge. I assume that includes those were bundled with hardware, but even so that’s pretty impressive stuff. It’s on the first page of this thread that I said I thought the Evercade would bomb, but fair dos, they’ve done all right.

The_Jaster wrote:

masofdas wrote:

seen few things it might be Legacy of Kain

Now that'd make me get one of these Evercades.

It is Legacy of Kain Blood Omen and Soul Reaver in a double pack from the PS1. I've only played SR and on Dreamcast (which was bit of an upgrade), though I am keen, yet this does give more credit to the remaster rumours (was toys at SDCC) as this happened to Tomb Raider which feel how I'll play on a PS5 or something.

I’m a bit lukewarm towards Legacy of Kain Collection. I respect that it’s a highly rated franchise and that it represents something different on Evercade (as opposed to the onslaught of homebrew NESMaker platformers that seem to make up about 75% of its total game library). Yet I’m not sure how well two dense, gothic console RPGs from the 1990s will have aged, or if this’ll be the best way of being introduced or reintroduced to them.

Having the knowledge that remasters are happening makes it less appealing to me as well. I got Tomb Raider Collection 1 in the post last weekend and I’ve spent a bit of the time with the first game on my Evercade Vs. My prevailing thought is that I’d honestly just prefer to play the smoother version of it on Switch, one where the navigation and positioning isn’t so awkward and one where the movement isn’t as clunky and annoying. I can’t think Soul Reaver is as rough as Tomb Raider 1 – and I have no clue about Blood Omen – but without analog control I don’t think it’s going to be a perfect match.

~

I’d seen a post on the Evercade’s Twitter page about a month ago, where they’d said that of 2024’s four yet-to-be-revealed carts “one would be a big and welcome surprise”, “one is a much-requested collection”, “one probably won’t be a surprise but will go down well” and “one is a fun wild card”. Since then they’ve confirmed Bitmap Brothers Collection 2 and Legacy of Kain Collection, which for me are definitely both in the “won’t be a surprise but will go down well” category. I hope they’ve got something big in store for December, although I’m not holding my breath.

You’d have to think there’ll be other Eidos/Crystal Dynamics games that were sold to Embracer Group making their way to the Evercade, alongside Tomb Raider and Legacy of Kain. Gex and Pandemonium seem very likely at this point (and I’d welcome those), but I’d noticed on Wikipedia that Alone In The Dark is owned by Embracer Group too – I’d have said maybe that’s the “big and welcome surprise” a week ago, but yesterday’s Croc remaster announcement came with the news that the game’s coming to “both current and retro game platforms”. Unless it’s an aftermarket Limited Run Games release, surely the Evercade is the only option for “a retro game platform”. 

Not that I’ll be getting everything anyway. Between the time of typing and December 31st they’re planning on releasing eight cartridges, a revised home console, a revised handheld, a new TATE grip, two Capcom-themed bartop arcades and two Super Pockets. That’s just ripping the pish.