Rediscovering the beauty of retrogaming with the Anbernic RG35XX Plus

A couple weeks ago I stumbled upon a video by Theo on his secondary channel titled “Nintendo isn't just attacking emulators”. In his video, Theo talks about the injustice of a copyright strike received by the Retro Games Corps channel from Nintendo, which seems to be particularly on a war footing in this period, especially after forcing the closure of popular Switch emulators Ryujinx and Yuzu (for context: after receiving three such strikes, a Youtube channel gets permanently closed, with no possibility of appeal).

First and foremost, I want to echo Theo’s support towards Retro Games Corps, as it truly is a gem in Youtube’s mare magnum - it’s probably one of the best channels on the entire platform when it comes to high-quality reviews of handheld retro devices.

Secondly, as you could expect, the discovery opened a whole new world for me, as I immediately started being attracted by the beauty of these portable consoles. I had no idea how much depth there was to them. Yes, I knew about emulation in general, but I didn’t realise that a vibrant community exists around playing games on these devices.

You know where I am going here: I couldn’t resist the temptation, so I ended up buying the Anbernic RG35XX Plus, for four specific reasons:

• It genuinely looks like a Game Boy (ahhh, the nostalgia!);
• It was available in a black, transparent colour, something I always wanted;
• It was relatively cheap;
• It was available on Amazon.

Boy, oh boy, you’ve no idea how much fun I’m having with this little gem!

Ladies and gentlemen, Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide Edition. The GOAT of the Yu-Gi-Oh! games for GBA.

First of all, I set up a new MicroSD card (the one it comes with is of very low quality unfortunately, so you gotta buy a separate one) and immediately installed MuOS on it. I chose MuOS because is constantly updated (as I am writing this post, the new version 2410.1 BANANA has just been released — yeah I know, amusing name), it boots faster according to many users, and has support for themes.

Right after that, I installed a few games that I played in the past, such as:

• Pokémon Trading Card Game (GBC)
• Yu-Gi-Oh! Worldwide Edition (GBA)
• Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga (GBA)
• Final Fantasy IX (PSX)

The device runs all of them flawlessly, with no extra setup required. I had no concerns about GBC/GBA games, but I wasn’t expecting it to handle a game like Final Fantasy IX so smoothly at 60 FPS. And with the ability to save and load states quickly, no matter what I’m doing, I don’t even need to worry about reaching the next save point if I’m interrupted for any reason.

Chrono Trigger for PSX. Installed and tested it, but just for a little while.

Last but not least…

• The battery lasts several hours (at least with the games I’m playing);
• It has exceptional build quality considering the price point;
• Did I already mention transparent colours!?

Please, do yourself a favour and don’t sleep on this beautiful handheld and buy it immediately if you were (or still are) into Game Boys just like me!

Disclaimer: I own all the games you see in the photos.