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#11
Retro Gaming and Hardware / Blaze Entertainment/ The Everc...
Last post by retro junkie - September 11, 2025, 09:49:38 AM
What to expect:
Blaze Entertainment's Evercade gaming ecosystem is easy to get into IMO. For the Evercade world to mean something to you, you must be into retro gaming because it is that sort-of a niche product. It is all about nostalgia and good simple gaming. Bringing home some of those old memories, be it arcade, or some old home console that you were really into at one time. For many it will be reliving their childhood. They are perhaps the biggest crowd that will reach for these consoles and embrace them. Evercade is carving out their own path in the gaming market with no competition other than those Chinese emulation portables. But those emulation portables are glitchy, haphazard in their delivery, inadequate at times,  and can be frustrating and disappointing when desiring a certain game that is plagued with incompatibility issues. Not to mention the shady side of it.

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My Evercade VS-R came with only one controller and a micro USB power cord.


This is the big advantage of the Blaze Evercade consoles. They have the support of the original creators, or game publishers, and this gives you all the confidence that if you see a game available for the console, it will be optimized for compatibility and very satisfying in its playability. Not only that but a lot of us out here enjoy those little extras, like a physical cartridge, colorful physical paper manuals, and the plastic case to store those things in, and Blaze delivers. When you see the game case, you will notice three different colors, red, purple, and blue. Blue is for PC games, red is for games ported to a home console, and purple is the original arcade game. Blaze even ports homebrew by independent game publishers to the console. Every cartridge contains multiple games, a diverse variety of genres, that you will almost find at least two or more that will appeal to you.  And it seems that the Evercade line of consoles have the capability to play every game console up through the Playstation one generation.

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These are four of the available Super Pocket portables that are compatible with the Evercade Carts.

Enter the Evercade Ecosystem:
Super Pocket Hyper Mega Tech! The easiest way to get into the Evercade world is to purchase one of the Super Pocket portables that contain built in games. I have four simply because I love the concept. But you really only need one. From there you can start to collect the Evercade game cartridges. Each of the Super Pockets are loaded with games from one of the classic game developers. For example, I have the Capcom Super Pocket Edition loaded with 12 classic Capcom arcade games. The Technos Edition is loaded with 15 arcade classics, the Taito Edition is loaded with 18 arcade classics, and the Neo Geo Edition is loaded with 14 arcade classics. It is so easy to all of a sudden have a collection of games for the system. I have four of the six available editions of the Super Pocket consoles and will probably pick up the other two.

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There are four inputs for game controllers


Evercade VS-R:
Then there is the home console. I am thinking that there are some who would rather be in front of their TV gaming. Blaze Entertainment has got you covered. And I would say if you are really into this ecosystem, the home console is a must have. Both the portable and the home console complement each other, playing the same games, at home, or on the go. And yes the game saves are on the cartridge. The build quality feels solid and good. There are some rubber feet on the bottom and I am suspicious about there being weights inside because there are no PCBs that can be that heavy. There are four controller inputs on the front. The back includes a reset button, HDMI port, and the power input. And a blue power button on top.

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Access to the game cartridges is similar to the old NES console in design

Quirks of the Evercade VS-R:
At first I thought there was a compatibility issue with this console. It would not play on my TCL flatscreen. I could not get it to boot up, or connect to that TV. But it did great on my Vizio. Found out that it needed a better quality HDMI cord than what I was using on my TCL TV. Also it will not boot up with just any old usb cord or power brick. The usb power cords are different in quality and apparently this affects the voltage. It must get the required voltage or it will not boot. Blaze says the micro USB power cable can be used with any suitable 5V/1-3.5A (2A recommended) power adapter, or brick. I have experimented by using a Hyperkin usb cord and it would not boot, it had a yellow light and would, either, not show anything on the TV screen, or it would only show the Blaze Entertainment logo. There is a light bar that goes across the front of the console that communicates its state. If it is blue then it is ready to play. As a side note, don't think that you will get a good quality cord from Blaze Entertainment. I have watched a Youtube video where the person had to change the cord that came with the console before it would boot up. He thought he had a bad console at first. I am glad that the one I got with mine met the console's qualifications. To turn the console on, push the blue start button on the top right side, you have to hold it down until you see the light bar glowing before you release. Turning it off is basically the same process. You can insert two game cartridges at once because it has two cart slots. If you insert two cartridges from the same game publisher, like I have Toaplan arcade 1 & 2, there will be a secret game revealed. With those two I got a Genesis game. The system acted a bit wonky when I was trying to go back to the game menu. I had to shut it down and reboot.

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The awesome blue light means you're ready to play


Using the Evercade VS-R:
The first thing you want to do is go to set-up. You want to set up your internet connection and check for updates to the console. I did and there was an update available, downloaded and install, which did not take long. Then you can go into options and set up the console the way you want it for playing games. I surprised myself by liking the heavy scanlines. You can set up the picture pixel wise, no scanlines, light or heavy scanlines, bezels on both sides of the game, or not, etc. It even has the ability to play your game, if needed in an arcade game, by turning your TV sideways, what, Truxton, yep. This thing has the ability to hot swap your game cartridges. I personally don't feel comfortable with that but maybe it is because I am old school. The game menu will show the games from both cartridges. Play and save your stopping point in the game.

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The controller. The directional pad reminds me of the Sega Genesis


Game controllers:
The game pad is very ergonomical and fits my hands nicely. The controller and the Super Pocket portables share the same button configuration. The fire buttons remind me of an XBOX 360 game pad. The cord is about nine and a half feet in length. Everything feels nice and tight and ready for action. Four shoulder buttons, four fire buttons, directional button, menu, start, and select button. I would say a nice, feel, quality pad. Some say that you can use an XBOX one, or 360, controller, but I could not get mine to work. I did however get a retrobit Sega Genesis six button controller to work. It can only be used as a second controller in a two player game due to no menu button. And for some reason it depends on the game. For example it would work for Snow Brothers but not for Truxton.

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The game selection of both game cartridges appear and are selectable in the game menu


Bottom Line:
I know I have sounded like one big long commercial. But it is hard not to when you are having so much fun and that makes a person excited. I am having an awesome gaming time with the arcade games. There are some games that I never had the opportunity to play in the arcades, only on a home console. There is a big difference. And I am personally looking forward to the Neo Geo arcade collection series. Volume one is out now. That will be my next purchase. Big thumbs up to Blaze for such a novel idea! Keeping retro gaming alive!

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Size comparison to an NES game cartridge
#12
Help / Issues / Re: Chicken Dinner Crashing!!
Last post by BLUEVOODU - September 10, 2025, 02:40:07 PM
Hey @retro junkie --> the site has had a couple issues.  Sending a pm
#13
Help / Issues / Chicken Dinner Crashing!!
Last post by retro junkie - September 10, 2025, 02:08:34 PM
I have noticed the crashing of the site. During one of the times it was up I made a posting. I see now it is missing. I am assuming that there was a roll back to get the site going again? If so then I will need to post my review of the Evercade VS-R again?
#14
Retro Gaming and Hardware / Re: Evercade
Last post by retro junkie - August 30, 2025, 11:45:16 AM
@BLUEVOODU my most recent purchase...

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I got this for In the Hunt and R-Type. The different color box signifies that it is the arcade version of the game. Today I ordered Toaplan arcade 1 and 2, got a lot of shmups on each one. I will probably end up with all four as I found out today that there are four in all so far.

One thing I find troubling is there are some that are not going to be accepting US orders due to tariffs, as this is a UK item. This makes it very difficult to obtain new releases.
#15
General Discussion / Re: Superman 2025
Last post by CreepinDeth - August 30, 2025, 02:47:14 AM
I watched this a couple of weeks ago. I give it a 7/10.

Overall it was a decent Superman movie. I do like David Corenswet as Superman and I think he fits the role better than Henry Canvill. I also liked Rachel Brosnahan's Lois Lane. I thought the chemistry was believable. I also liked the fact that other characters were already known in this universe. Lex Luthor was fine. I think Michael Rosenbaum from Smallville still has the best take of Lex this century.


However, there were definitely things I didn't like. Not a big fan of a lot of the dialogue. It felt like a Marvel movie in terms of the jokes. It was just too much sometimes. I'm starting to wonder if Gunn is the main reason for how Marvel films are written. The more I think about it, the more I realize there is definitely a tone shift from movies before Guardians of the Galaxy to everything else after. Even though Joss Whedon had a similar writing style in the first Avengers, Gunn might've established it more with his films. Some of it was even predictable, like when
Spoiler: ShowHide
Lois and Mr. Terrific stood in front of the garage door. Immediately knew that it was going to open slow. It was so obvious.


Krypto was cool but I do think they inserted him into too many scenes. Some worked and some definitely didn't. For example,
Spoiler: ShowHide
was not a fan of how he got involved in the final scene with Lex Luthor. Felt way too campy.


There's probably other stuff I can nitpick but I think I'll leave it there for now.
#16
General Discussion / Re: Game Subscriptions
Last post by CreepinDeth - August 30, 2025, 02:31:28 AM
I've only done GamePass and that's only because I haven't had to pay for it for the last 4 years. I've been doing the Microsoft Rewards thing where I can redeem the points for monthly subscriptions. However, I think I'm done with it. My GamePass is through the end of January and I think that's enough for me. Don't feel like going through their Rewards system anymore.

In general though, game subscriptions are only as good as the price and for me they're all too expensive.
#17
@BLUEVOODU my 2012 Macbook Pro is running great. MX Linux is a solid distro. I have not ran into any issues.
#18
Retro Gaming and Hardware / Re: N64: Transformers Beast Wa...
Last post by retro junkie - August 28, 2025, 09:09:03 PM
@BLUEVOODU I am thinking that Stunt Racer 64 was another game that was a Block Buster rental only.
#19
Retro Gaming and Hardware / Re: Evercade
Last post by retro junkie - August 28, 2025, 09:02:43 PM
@BLUEVOODU same console..................

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see my Hyper Mega Tech post.............
#20
Retro Gaming and Hardware / Re: A DS ML Console? Whuuut?!
Last post by retro junkie - August 28, 2025, 08:40:54 PM
@BLUEVOODU Aliexpress is the guy who walks up to you in a trench coat, opens it up, and you see all of these watches for sale. He is ready to sell you one. You may pick a winner or it may fall apart after he leaves. :))