Through its Evercade and HyperMechTech lines, UK-based manufacturer Blaze has not only done a commendable job of keeping retro games alive, but has also made them financially viable in an era when the vast majority of players are hooked to their PC or Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft-made games consoles.

The Evercade range has delivered a wide selection of physical carts, and its hardware now spans handheld, console and even tabletop arcade machines. Meanwhile, Blaze's HyperMegaTech sub-brand has given us the cheap-and-cheerful Super Pocket series, which are Evercade-compatible and ship with pre-loaded games from the likes of Atari, Capcom, Data East and Taito.

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The Microsoft of today might be guilty of dropping a few clangers when it comes to its Xbox strategy, but back when the 360 was launched, the company got (almost) everything right; it had a robust system with good online infrastructure and some amazing exclusives.

However, the one thing that really stands out in my mind when I think back to the Xbox 360 era is the controller. After the decidedly lukewarm response I had to the OG Xbox pad, I was absolutely blown away by the one that shipped with its successor. To this day, it remains one of my favourite controllers, and, alongside Sony's DualShock range, has done much to shape what people expect from a gamepad in the modern era.

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Evercade's collaboration with SNK has already delivered one top-tier collection in the form of Neo Geo Arcade 1, and the two companies have followed it up with this second helping, again made up of six AES / MVS classics from the early '90s.

Neo Geo Arcade 2 features Garou: Mark of the Wolves, Art Of Fighting 2, Metal Slug 2, Crossed Swords, Ninja Commando and Sengoku 2, delivering a nice mix of genres – no mean feat when you consider how many one-on-one fighting games there are in the Neo Geo's library.

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Arguably one of the most important video game companies to come out of the United Kindgom, Rare is responsible for hits such as Donkey Kong Country, GoldenEye 007, Perfect Dark, Killer Instinct, Diddy Kong Racing, Battletoads, Sea of Thieves and many, many more – and the company's legacy is now being celebrated via the Evercade family of retro gaming systems.

Rare Collection 1 contains 12 games – Atic Atac, Gunfright, Jetpac, Knight Lore, Lunar Jetman, Sabre Wulf, Underwurlde, Battletoads, Cobra Triangle, R.C. Pro-Am, Conker's Pocket Tales and Battletoads Arcade / Super Battletoads – covering the early part of Rare's history as well as its pre-history, when the firm was operating under the Ultimate Play The Game banner.

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Atari has done an excellent job of mining its illustrious past in recent years, giving us the Atari 2600+ and the Atari 7800+ – as well as a selection of brand-new carts to play on them.

The company's big release for Christmas 2025 takes a slightly different approach, however; rather than give us an entirely new 'Plus' console this year, Atari has taken the original 2600+ and given it a Pac-Man lick of paint and bundled it with one of the most remarkable 'retro ports' we've seen in a long time.

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The Atari of 2025 may not be the same company that spearheaded the arcade and home console revolution of the '70s and '80s, but it's doing a commendable job of keeping those glory days alive through a selection of updated games and licensed hardware.

We've already seen the 2600+ and 7800+ consoles (produced in conjunction with Plaion), as well as a series of systems produced by My Arcade, a company that has also worked with the likes of Sega, Namco, Capcom, and Taito to produce a range of affordable, plug-and-play retro gaming devices.

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Flash carts have become such an integral part of retro gaming that they are now evolving over time, with newer variants boasting special features that go beyond merely running ROMs on vintage hardware.

Krikzz's range of EverDrive carts is a good example of this iterative process; the Ukrainian engineer and modder is a seasoned veteran in this part of the industry, having produced some of the earliest (and best) flash carts in the business.

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Dual-screen handhelds which ape the form and function of the Nintendo DS and 3DS aren't a new thing – AYANEO produced the Windows-based Flip DS and Flip KB at the start of 2024 – but we've seen a formidable second wave appear in 2025, with AYN joining AYANEO at the dual-display party via its Thor.

AYANEO has returned to the concept with the Android-based Pocket DS, a device which is very similar to the Flip series in terms of size and form factor.

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Games like Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja have, in recent years, become more famous for their meme-worthy quotes than the actual quality of their gameplay, and Polymega Collection Vol. 5 serves as a stark reminder of this fact.

This pack only covers two games – the titular Bad Dudes and its (semi) sequel, Two Crude – and arguably represents one of the weakest entries in the Polymega Collection series so far (in terms of pure value for money, at least).

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Taito may be little more than a sub-brand owned by Square Enix these days, but once upon a time, this prolific Japanese company was one of the most active and influential in arcade gaming.

Everybody knows Space Invaders, of course, the 1978 hit that not only birthed the shmup genre but also boosted the popularity of coin-op gaming worldwide. However, Taito's history is peppered with smash hits, including Bubble Bobble, Rainbow Islands, Rastan, Elevator Action, Arkanoid, Operation Wolf and many, many more.

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The Evercade EXP and Evercade VS are now a few years old, but both have already had a redesign in 2024, swapping out the white colour scheme of the original models for a grey-and-blue approach, known as 'Neon Retro'.

Manufacturer Blaze has now given both machines a third spruce-up, this time adopting a grey-and-red colourway ('Classic Retro') which, for me at least, calls to mind the design of the NES.

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Not content to hit consumers with a new wave of emulation handhelds on a yearly basis, Chinese firm AYANEO has now established a sub-brand called KONKR which is focused on budget-friendly devices – which means we'll be seeing even more devices from the company over the next few years.

The first product in this family, the Pocket Fit, is notable for offering a Snapdragon G3 Gen 3 chipset (or Snapdragon 8 Elite, depending on your budget) and a starting price of $239, making it a little friendlier on your wallet than some of AYANEO's previous offerings.

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When you combine the words "rally" and "arcade", chances are you'll find that Sega Rally Championship enters your mind pretty swiftly. The 1995 coin-op smash hit delivered drift-based off-road thrills to millions of players, but it was far from the first game of its type in arcades.

Visco's Drift Out franchise kicked things off a few years earlier, but with a notable difference – it used 2D technology for its racing action, rather than 3D. The series often gets overlooked for this reason, which is a shame; it's still an awful lot of fun and, realism aside, does a pretty decent job of replicating the sport of rallycross.

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Toaplan's Tiger-Heli made quite the impact when it arrived in arcades in 1985. Created by the core team of Masahiro Yuge, Tatsuya Uemura, and Yuichirō Nozawa, it was one of the first games to make use of a screen-clearing bomb and was commercially successful thanks to its intense challenge and tight, engaging gameplay.

Tiger-Heli is the game that launched Toaplan into the arcade mainstream, and was a sizeable hit all over the world – and it's now the foundation of the fourth entry in the Polymega Collection series.

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The Evercade family of systems has seen some amazing collections over the past few years, but few have been quite as eagerly-awaited as the Neo Geo Arcade 1 cartridge. Much of this will be down to the fact that, once upon a time, SNK's home console was considered to be one of the most desirable platforms on the planet; it delivered coin-op quality games in your living room but was, to coin a phrase borrowed from a particular beer maker, "reassuringly expensive."

In the decades that have followed since the Neo Geo AES and MVS hardware thrilled gamers all over the world, most of the best games have been made available in other ways. We've seen collections on the PS2, Wii, PSP and (more recently) Switch, and almost all of the console's leading offerings are available for digital download on modern systems.

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Originally released on the Commodore Amiga, Badger Punch's Roguecraft is coming to the Evercade family of systems as Roguecraft DX, and, as you might expect, it offers a few welcome enhancements that make this award-winning roguelike even more appealing.

I'll get onto what's been added in a moment, but if you're new to Roguecraft, here's a brief history lesson. The game is actually based on Rogue64, Badger Punch's C64 title (which is also available on Evercade, but as a hidden game). The goal is to take one of three character classes and guide them through a series of procedurally-generated dungeons, fighting off enemies, collecting gold, boosting your stats with pick-ups and picking up potions – all while attempting to secure the key which grants access to the next level down.

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Not too long ago, I reviewed the Anbernic RG ARC. Available in a Saturn-style colour scheme and boasting a button layout based on that console's iconic controller, it was all set to become my dream system – until it became glaringly apparent that it couldn't run Saturn games very well, and its D-pad had serious manufacturing issues which only became obvious over time. It was crushed, because the Saturn is one of my favourite consoles of all time.

You can imagine, then, why I was so excited when Retroid announced the Pocket Classic 6, a Game Boy-style emulation handheld which not only offers the power to run pretty much all Saturn games at full speed, but also has a six-button layout – and is available in a colourway which mimics that of the Japanese Saturn.

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Toaplan's Tiger-Heli is rightly regarded as one of the most influential shmups of all time, so it's somewhat surprising that it hasn't been ported to more home consoles. For many years, Micronics' much-maligned NES port was the only way to experience it outside of the arcade, and while it has made its way onto several compilations in subsequent years, the lack of '80s ports is curiously at odds with Tiger-Heli's sizeable impact on the genre.

One console which really could have done with a port of the game back in the day was the Atari 7800, which struggled to replicate the commercial performance of its forerunner, the 2600. Thankfully, Atari and Plaion – with assistance from the super-talented programmer Bruno Steux – have corrected this oversight a few decades down the line.

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I've long said that the handheld emulation sector is saturated with devices which all basically do the same thing, with only minor increases in processing power setting them apart – well, that and design inspiration, which usually involves cloning the look of a famous portable from decades ago, like the GBA or GBA SP.

The MagicX Zero 40 (available for under $100 from MechDIY) is a refreshingly new approach that doesn't attempt to ape the look of classic hardware, but instead uses a bespoke design to offer a laser-focused means of rediscovering Nintendo DS games.

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Sir Clive Sinclair's ZX Spectrum is one of the most talked-about and influential home computers the world has ever seen, despite its commercial reach being mostly limited to the United Kingdom. With around five million units sold during its lifetime – and playing host to thousands of games – the ZX Spectrum launched the careers of countless bedroom coders and created a generation of devoted gamers.

We've seen multiple attempts to capitalise on the deep-rooted nostalgia that exists for this venerable home micro – including the ill-fated ZX Vega+ and the somewhat more successful Spectrum micro-console – but arguably the most promising revival of this legendary system is the ZX Spectrum Next, an FPGA-powered replica that began life in Brazil over a decade ago before coming to market via Kickstarter in 2017.

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When the legendary Yuzo Koshiro announced he was working on a new shmup called Earthion for his beloved Mega Drive / Genesis back in 2023, the anticipation of fans all over the world was palpable.

Koshiro – famous for composing music for the likes of Streets of Rage, Revenge of Shinobi and Etrian Odyssey – is a seasoned shmup junkie, so the promise of a classic take on the genre combined with his exceptional audio talents was enough to propel Earthion to the top of many people's most wanted list.

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As somebody who has limited space beneath their television (and an increasingly limited amount of spare time to play video games), Playmaji's Polymega modular retro gaming system was a breath of fresh air for me when it arrived a few years ago. Here was a system which could house my curated physical gaming collection (in digital form) on a single, unified hardware platform, complete with creature comforts such as save states, HD output and the ability to use original accessories.

The fly in the ointment with Polymega is the amount of time it has taken Playmaji to fulfil orders; I was lucky enough to get an early review unit (albeit one that isn't the final production spec and has already been back to Playmaji's HQ once for a firmware update that couldn't be applied over the internet), but my Hookshot Media colleague, Ant Dickens, ordered one and had to wait a considerable amount of time before his system arrived. Others are apparently still waiting.

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There are plenty of Sega Genesis / Mega Drive games out there that can claim to be the best looking on the console, and now we have another to add to that list in the form of DaemonClaw: Origins of Nnar, a side-scrolling action title developed by BitBeamCannon and ported to Sega's 16-bit system by Neofid Studios, the team behind Demons of Asteborg and Astebros.

Taking on the role of the excellently named Elrik Eisenfaust, you're tasked with defending the land of Nnar from the Zverkin hordes, and your primary means of achieving this goal is the titular DaemonClaw. Capable of harnessing magic for powerful attacks, this enchanted gauntlet is all that stands between humanity's survival and its utter defeat. No pressure, then.

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While HyperMegaTech's Super Pocket Neo Geo Edition has been attracting all of the attention recently, it's important to remember it's not the only new addition to the lineup that launched this month – there's a Data East-themed Super Pocket, too.

Pre-loaded with 18 games and sporting what I personally think is the best colourway of the lineup so far, this £49.99 / $59.99 / €59.99 handheld supports Evercade cartridges, opening up access to over 600 different games.

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Blaze's HyperMegaTech brand has been pumping out Super Pocket handhelds for a while now, working with companies like Taito, Atari, Capcom and Technos to deliver budget-friendly and super-portable ways of leveraging the massive Evercade library.

However, it's fair to say that the Super Pocket Neo Geo Edition is one of the most eagerly awaited additions to this lineup so far. Part of a bold collaboration between Blaze and Saudi-owned SNK, this £49 / $69 / € 59 device comes with 14 pre-loaded Neo Geo titles and is compatible with the Evercade range of cartridges, giving potential access to over 600 titles.

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