Around two years ago the Evercade became a thing among vintage and physical edition game collectors. I think I've written a bit about it before, but if you're not sure what the Evercade is you can check out their website here and take a look; it's a nice website. Most recently the third iteration of this console is about to release: the Evercade EXP, a more robust handheld console which has internet connectivity and some preloaded games. It's a step in the right direction, even for a system which is selling itself on the idea that you can buy and play vintage games in cartridge collections.
Anyway, as a person who got swept up in the collector's fever of this console, I thought I'd share a few observations about it, and offer some advice for those of you who are new to the Evercade but might be interested in picking it up. First and most importantly is that the original is a nice, sturdy handheld design, and its only failing is it can be mildly awkward to connect to your PC for any necessary updates (there's usually one you need to download when you get it), and it does not support all the cartridges in current release....I believe the original Evercade only works with the red box releases. That said, there are at least 26 of these collections out there so the original still has a lot of content, and if you find one on sale its probably worth it (but see below).
The Evercade VS is the "console" version of the system, slightly more robust, and designed to handle arcade ports of up to 23 bits (iirc). It's able to play all the games, but its collection of purple box cartridges contain arcade ports and other titles that the handheld can't handle. It's main feature is you can easily hook this up to a TV and play with friends using the retro controllers it comes with. It's main downside has been, from my experience, it can sometimes be hard to "wake up." It's fun, though....my son and I have had a good time plowing through old games I never had the quarters on hand to complete back in the day. I now know for example that it would have probably taken me 120 or more quarters to finish Dark Seal I or Dark Seal II. I bet some of these old arcade classics never had their full range of content fully explored by most people, simply because it cost too much to get there!
Now there is a new Evercade EXP coming out next week, a slimmer handheld which is compatible with all cartridges, some wireless connectivity, and a range of games preloaded (including some actual notable titles like Mega Man). This one looks like a measured improvement over the origina handheld, and I will report on it when I get my copy in.
So far, my main realization in collecting Evercade so far has been the following: any of the iterations are worth having if you like retro gaming or physical cartridges, but unless you love owning all games for their own sake, you may wish to look closely at each cartridge release and assess whether the games on it are worth the typical $20 price tag you can get the cartridges for. For example, I know I have gotten my money's worth out of cartridges like the Namco and Atari collections, and there's a great collection of mostly RPGs that I never played back in the day but find well worth the time now to have (Piko Interactive Collection), but some other collections have provided precious little....owning them is more so you can smugly say you have it all, or to admire the equivalent of an electronic museum of forgotten relics of the past than anything else.
A few collections contain games new to the console or at least newer, such as the Xenocrisis/Tanglewood collection, well worth owning if you don't have these games elsewhere yet) and the Indie Heroes collection, which gathers a range of more contemporary titles for the Evercade and puts them in an ideal medium of play. But for many collections, I have been lucky to find one game that made me happy to have the cartridge, and often the main appeal of the other games was simply to discover that they even existed....and that anyone cared to bring them back! The Atari Lynx collections, as an example, were all new to me, and while a couple were fun, I suspect I would be a lot more enamored of the collections if I had ever owned a Lynx back in the day.
So basically: take the time to look at what's on the cartridges, and make sure at least a couple of the titles appeal to you or scratch the nostalgia itch. Unless you're planning to dive deep into the collector's zone, chances are you can probably pick up 5-6 cartridges with most of the actual games you might want to spend time with and be scrutinizing of the rest.
Okay, maybe next week I'll talk more about the Evercade EXP, unless my wife forces me to put them under the Xmas tree, we shall see.
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