Stuck in the Past

 

In my neighborhood, cheap Chinese game consoles have been a thing for years.  And I've always ignored them, uninterested in their shovelwave games and poor quality control.  But along with those, stores also peddle portable emulators.  And one in particular has been making the rounds on YouTube and in the retro gaming community.  One that's readily available and costs less than half of what I've paid for my last Game Boy.  So I caved and bought . . .

The R36S Open Source Console ("Game Console")

It's gone by many names, probably cuz it's been sold by as many companies.  Despite a messy distribution history, its appeal is a massive library of ROMs spanning from the 8-bit to the early 3D era, running on as many emulators as I have on my phone.

Rear view of the box.

Here's a quick rundown of you get of the box.  There's the system itself, which comes in clear black, 'Atomic Purple', and white, along with a charging cable.  Then there's a clear screen protector, good for when the screen already on the console peels off.  You also get wet and dry wipes for the screens and a brief, almost unintelligible instruction booklet.  The R36S also has 2 slots for memory cards, but only one slot has a generic 64 GB micro SD card holding the operating system and all the ROMs.  More on that later.

The R36S comes packed with literally thousands of games from consoles ranging from the original Nintendo systems to SEGA's Genesis and Dreamcast to the PC Engine and so on.  But while long-sought titles like Tactics Ogre for the Game Boy Advance (above) run without a hitch . . .

More technically demanding titles like Dead or Alive for the Dreamcast suffers from laggy picture and sound.

Out course, third-party products like this are gonna have performance issues.  But the real catch is that generic memory card can and probably will fail at anytime, turning the R36S into an overpriced fiddle toy.  There is a way to upgrade to a better memory card, an otherwise simple process for which I'm hopelessly unequipped.  It's also come to my attention that what I've got is a clone of the 'real' R36S; a knock-off of a knock-off, if you will.  Which explains why I can't use wifi routers or other peripherals on it like they do on YouTube.

Despite having to sift through duplicates and multiple versions of the same games, and unable to add some ROMs of my own, I'm impressed with the handheld overall and I want to save it if I can.  Though being a budget gaming system, replacing it wouldn't sting nearly as much if it was a Switch or Chromatic.

And that about does it for now.  Next time, I'll be trying out new games while still on my retro kick.  I'm also catching up on my reading and celebrating International LEGO Day--about a day or so too late.  Hope to see you then.