ModRetro Chromatic assessment: an arms vendor’s Sport Boy is among the many greatest ever made

If Lockheed Martin made a Sport Boy, would you purchase one?

Within the Nineties, I used to be among the many children who thought army plane have been devastatingly cool. By then, Tom Cruise and High Gun had lengthy established the F-14 Tomcat and a pair of flier shades as a fantasy for younger males; I personally most popular the Lockheed F-117A, the high-tech angular “Stealth Fighter” that might invisibly sneak previous enemy radar, and was a fan of the legendary Lockheed SR-71 that flew so quick it might outrun missiles.

On the time, I in all probability would have snapped up a jet-black Lockheed Sport Boy with no second thought. However I’m sufficiently old now to appreciate that cool aerodynamics are simply the tip of a deadlier geopolitical iceberg. Lockheed makes weapons, and I don’t have a say in who will get to purchase them or who they’re used in opposition to. I don’t have a say in whether or not that tech ought to exist in any respect.

I’ve been fascinated by Lockheed Martin as I assessment a a lot less complicated gadget: the ModRetro Chromatic. The Chromatic is a high-end remake of Nintendo’s Sport Boy, and it is perhaps the most effective model of a Sport Boy ever made. However it’s related to an organization very similar to Lockheed: Anduril, the protection contractor that makes weaponized drones, networked surveillance methods, and different army tech.

Each Anduril and ModRetro are based by Palmer Luckey, the creator of the Oculus Rift VR headset. Luckey is now an nearly unbelievable character, a religious anime and online game lover who reportedly shops his huge assortment of video games in a decommissioned US nuclear missile silo — certainly one of a number of silos he says he owns. 

He performs with a lavish assortment of army {hardware} together with helicopters and a Mark V Particular Operations Craft utilized by Navy SEALs. He as soon as made the quilt of Time Journal as a floating barefoot “visionary” with an Oculus headset atop his head, although nowadays he’s extra more likely to make headlines propagandizing for his model of the protection trade. He was the face of VR earlier than Fb kicked him out. (Luckey was an early Trump booster and took flak for funding a single Hillary Clinton-trolling billboard; Mark Zuckerberg denied he was fired for his political beliefs on the time; some Meta execs have since apologized for his ouster.) 

Many tech firms are concerned with army tasks in some form or type. Google and Amazon have a contract with Israel for a “Venture Nimbus” that Google knew might have enabled human rights violations in opposition to Palestinians, and Google has fired many staff for protesting that deal. Microsoft is at the moment working in direction of outfitting over 100,000 troopers with a militarized model of its HoloLens headset. Meta is now letting protection contractors use its Llama AI mannequin. I believe it’s truthful to say few of us boycott these firms and even take into consideration this stuff once we use their merchandise.

However the place every of those firms can plausibly say “It’s simply enterprise” as they defend their cloud server contracts or when their CEOs kiss the ring, and it’s very laborious to flee Large Tech’s orbit, this can be a enjoyable however pointless product from a person with a particular viewpoint on weapons, warfare, and politics. Luckey has twice hosted fundraisers for Donald Trump (in 2020 and 2024) at his personal home. He publicly expresses the fervent (and self-serving) perception that tech firms ought to get in mattress with the army.

For Luckey, it’s not simply enterprise, it’s private. And we’ve heard loud and clear that it’s private for a lot of of our readers, too. I’ve been testing the ModRetro Chromatic for over a month, and it’s very good. I consider it’s the most effective, most luxurious strategy to play Sport Boy and Sport Boy Shade video games. But when the aim is to revive and protect our childhood nostalgia, the Luckey connection throws a wrench within the works. What you’re about to learn is an actual assessment of a wonderful product, one I genuinely loved utilizing — however one which left me feeling considerably tortured within the course of.

For Luckey, the Sport Boy itself is private. It’s how he obtained his begin. Earlier than Anduril, earlier than Fb, earlier than Oculus, Palmer Luckey was a teen who modded Nintendo Sport Boys. “ModRetro” was the identify of the very very first thing he based: a web based discussion board for gaming {hardware} modders like himself.

In order you’d count on, his firm has some robust concepts about what a contemporary Sport Boy ought to appear to be.

The place the $220 Analogue Pocket seeks to replace the Sport Boy expertise for the current day — with assist for different handheld cartridges, ROMs, save states, a TV dock, and so forth — the Chromatic stays squarely rooted within the handheld’s previous. There are few trendy facilities right here. It’s designed to really feel like a classic Sport Boy, solely now with the tough edges sanded off.

Nintendo’s easy-to-scratch casings, display screen lenses, and buttons? They’re product of steel, sapphire, and PBT plastic now. These hard-to-see screens? You now get a customized IPS show on the identical measurement, decision, and pixel construction as the unique Sport Boy and Sport Boy Shade, one so brilliant you possibly can play in direct daylight like we did again within the day. It does come, nevertheless, with a brand-new copy of Tetris that optionally provides T-Spins, prompt drops, and the power to carry items for later, modernizing the traditional sport that famously got here bundled with the unique.

At its coronary heart, the Chromatic is an try to faithfully cross the unique 1989 Sport Boy with the 1998 Sport Boy Shade. There’s no SD card reader, no user-accessible working system, no potential so as to add or play ROMs: if you slide the top-mounted energy change, it immediately boots your Sport Boy or Sport Boy Shade cartridge utilizing a Discipline Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) chip that emulates an precise Sport Boy’s processors. Like with the Analogue Pocket, the upshot is extra responsive, quirk-free gameplay than software program emulators permit. 

I’m a mum or dad, and “I don’t have time for this shit” comes with the territory, so I instantly assumed I’d miss “save states,” the characteristic that lets virtually each online game emulator and retro handheld pause and resume your sport at actually any second.

Then I fired up Pokémon Pinball on an Analogue Pocket, and located I used to be improper. I used to be on a pokémon-catching roll like by no means earlier than. I caught Charmander, my daughter’s favourite pokémon, and for the primary time in Pinball, I advanced it right into a Charmeleon, then a Charizard, all with out dropping my ball. The stakes have been excessive, so I reflexively tapped the Save State shortcut so I might retry if I failed.

Instantly, the strain was off — however I felt a bit of my pleasure vanish together with it. I caught these Pokemon truthful and sq. with out loading the save, however I’d cheated myself of a pure victory, even when I didn’t wind up dishonest the sport. Once I caught that very same sport again into the Chromatic, a handheld with out save states, the joy got here again. That is the way in which the sport is supposed to be performed, and people stakes are there by design. That’s the expertise ModRetro desires you to have, and the one one you’ll get. Ditching that trendy amenity is a alternative, and it isn’t for everybody.

It’s simply certainly one of some ways the Chromatic feels extra genuine. Despite the fact that it’s a mash-up of two totally different Sport Boy fashions, it immediately feels acquainted in methods the Analogue doesn’t, from the sliding energy change and quantity dial (the Analogue has you maintain down carefully spaced digital buttons and takes longer to begin a sport) to the button format and really feel.

The Chromatic is mainly the dimensions of a Sport Boy Shade, with the identical bulging battery compartment curve offering a rounded perch in your fingers to relaxation. However it’s clearly been designed for many who respect the unique 1989 mannequin too. It’s obtained the unique’s iconic slanted, cake-sprinkle Begin and Choose buttons, its shiny domed A and B buttons, its bigger D-pad, its extra protected cartridge slot, and the rounded lower-right corners of its flat-faced chassis and canopy glass. All of them carry me again to the hand held that made me a gamer. 

I ponder if they convey Luckey again to his early days, too. As a result of whereas ModRetro seems to have made a remarkably repairable handheld and is at the moment open-sourcing its CAD information and firmware, this bespoke machine will not be precisely what ModRetro was initially created to make. 

Luckey minimize his tooth turning present Sport Boys and GameCubes into arguably higher, extra transportable variations of themselves by reusing bits of outdated and new electronics. “It’s loads of enjoyable as a result of it’s about taking outdated know-how after which slicing out the outdated elements, changing them with new elements and making it into one thing that was by no means potential earlier than,” he advised Voices of VR in 2014. The ModRetro Chromatic is all customized, although, proper right down to its in-house display screen. 

Nonetheless, ModRetro’s unique method to improvement has been on show all through Luckey’s skilled historical past. Luckey’s key perception with the Oculus Rift was that low-cost smartphone parts might lastly make VR accessible, a perception he shared with researchers on the lab the place he labored, too. Repurposed business provide chains are additionally Anduril’s pitch to turn out to be the world’s best weapons producer, “in order that the identical processes used to construct fiberglass bathtubs can simply as simply be reconfigured to construct missile airframes,” as Pill Journal described it in August.

With that method, Anduril has quickly constructed out an arsenal in simply seven years, together with a number of drones that may kill — one is a “loitering munition” that remotely dive-bombs a goal, one other successfully a recoverable ground-to-air missile. 

Once I take a look at the Chromatic and its distinguished “MODRETRO” brand proper above the display screen, usually I simply see a wonderful Sport Boy. However typically I see the most recent high-tech product from a person who makes high-tech missiles. 

At this level, you is perhaps questioning: simply how glorious is that this {hardware} to justify all this soul-searching? Let’s begin with construct high quality:

• It’s product of steel, not plastic, which may appear a little bit chilly at first contact, however I can’t overstate how strong and premium this gadget feels. The construct is unbelievable.
• I even deliberately dropped a Chromatic twice onto concrete, from 4.5 ft, with out destroying it. Extra on that in a sec.
• The battery latch is a bodily spring-loaded lever, which takes a little bit getting used to, however has such a satisfying snap.
• Not like each official Sport Boy, there’s no entrance speaker grille. However in contrast to all my official Sport Boys, the bottom-facing speaker is loud, crisp, and clear.
• The Begin/Choose buttons are now not pliable mushy rubber, however fairly PBT plastic with the identical agency clicky presses as A and B.
• The amount dial is massive and straightforward to seek out and use by really feel alone.
• The battery compartment is almost the identical thickness as the unique Sport Boy’s, giving it a beefier grip than any Sport Boy since (although not fairly sufficient for my associates with massive palms). 
• The D-pad, a little bit of a sore spot for some Analogue Pocket fans as a result of it could typically permit unintended inputs, feels tight and responsive – nearly too agency, mine wore in after many hours of play.
• Once I examined it in opposition to an Analogue Pocket on the identical brightness, utilizing rechargeable AAs, the Chromatic lasted three total hours longer. (You’ll be able to watch a sped-up timelapse in my At the moment I’m Toying With video.)
• I merely plug the Chromatic into USB if I’m ever working low on cost — at below three watts of energy draw, any outdated port will do! I powered it from my telephone. 
• I might even hotswap AA batteries that manner. Plug it in, swap AAs, unplug, all with out dropping my sport. 

The Chromatic’s pixel-perfect display screen isn’t strictly essential: I usually had simply nearly as good a time on the Analogue Pocket’s greater, increased decision show if I enabled the proper filters and colour palettes, although I did respect that the Chromatic obtained the Sport Boy Shade really feel excellent out of the field. The Chromatic even enables you to summon green-tinted unique Sport Boy palettes by holding down buttons at boot.

There are additionally some methods it’s not fully devoted to the unique Sport Boys, simply FYI:

• There’s now not a visual hole between the display screen crystal and the LCD, and the display screen is now not a clean inexperienced or gray when powered off. It’s a laminated black mirror like trendy telephones.
• Whereas it’s largely the dimensions of a Sport Boy Shade, it’s practically as heavy as a totally loaded unique Sport Boy at 10 ounces (285g). Evaluate to 7.5oz / 212g for the Sport Boy Shade.
• There’s an additional button beneath the quantity dial that allows you to change brightness, activate body mixing and USB colour correction and… that’s about it for now.
• You get a Sport Boy Shade-sized Hyperlink Cable connector, however with the additional notch of the Sport Boy Advance’s connector for probably extra compatibility with different Sport Boy devices.
• You get two lanyard/appeal holes, one on both sides of the system, in contrast to the Shade’s one on the left.
• The battery compartment takes three AAs, not 4 or two.
• There’s now not a purple energy LED staring you within the face, however fairly a multicolor LED on the underside that solely activates for boot, low battery, and charging.
• The Sport Boy Shade infrared port’s been barely moved to accommodate the facility change.

And there have been just a few minor disappointments too. Largely, I want it labored a little bit higher in quiet bedrooms and loud airplanes. The buttons and even the D-pad click on louder than any of my outdated Sport Boys, but the three.5mm headphone jack quantity is the quietest of the pack. I might barely hear its chiptunes over the din of the airplane, and I couldn’t compensate with my noise-canceling Bose QC25 because the Chromatic doesn’t have a four-pole headset jack.

ModRetro additionally advertises the Chromatic as “indestructible,” and if that appears like advertising bluster, you’re a minimum of half proper. I dropped the Chromatic twice onto concrete, from 4.5 ft, and it got here away with solely minor dents, and I used to be impressed. However ModRetro additionally has an image of the factor getting run over by a automobile. Once I ran it over with my automobile, the display screen shattered. The body is now badly bent. 

I used to be additionally a tad disenchanted to seek out the Chromatic’s USB-C port isn’t as potent as promised. Whereas the corporate marketed USB-C video output and even advised me you might cost rechargeable AAs utilizing the do-it-all port, it seems the Chromatic can solely current itself as a webcam for desktop-style video recording, and NiMH AA charging didn’t make the minimize. ModRetro CEO Torin Herndon, who was an engineer at Anduril from 2017 to 2021, tells me the corporate is starting manufacturing on an non-compulsory rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack, however gained’t discuss worth, capability, or runtime simply but.

That mentioned, I truly discover I desire AAs. At 50 p.c brightness — far increased than I wanted on the airplane — I noticed over eight hours from a set of Ikea-branded Panasonic Eneloop rechargeables, or nearer to seven hours from Amazon Fundamentals alkalines. That very same model of alkalines gave me over 12 hours on the second-lowest brightness setting, the dimmest I’d wish to use within the daytime, and slightly below 5 hours at max brightness and max quantity. And once more, you possibly can merely plug the Chromatic right into a USB port should you’re ever working low on cost, then drop in new AAs with out dropping your sport.

There’s actually no query in my thoughts that this handheld is the most effective retro Sport Boy but made, the one which greatest captures the bodily feeling I had enjoying Sport Boy as a child. I love remasters as a result of they’ll allow you to recapture that childhood pleasure, enjoying with the Lego starship or Ultimate Fantasy sport you suppose you keep in mind as a substitute of the one that really existed.

However I don’t keep in mind my childhood nostalgia coming with a aspect of potential guilt and worry about placing cash into the pocket of a weapons contractor. Feels bizarre! 

Even virtually, I ponder who, outdoors of a handful of 1989 handheld lovers like me, would need a handheld that simply performs Sport Boy and Sport Boy Shade carts. Lots of the greatest video games are costly and laborious to seek out in bodily type — Metallic Gear Stable and the most effective Pokémon titles can simply command $100 every — and it’d be a extra compelling gadget if it might play the arguably higher library of Sport Boy Advance titles as properly. The Analogue Pocket does.

Luckey has mentioned he desires to increase that unique Sport Boy library. Sport builders by no means fairly stopped making homebrew video games for the Sport Boy, and ModRetro is likely one of the few now publishing them on precise carts. Each Chromatic comes with a brand new copy of Tetris, and you’ll already order 10 extra titles, together with a brand new model of Toki Tori and Tales of Monsterland, sequels to Traumatarium and Within the Darkish, and my private favourite, the grindy JRPG Dragonyhm with some glorious tunes and pixel artwork.

This chiptune specifically, Dragonyhm’s “Gonrad Forest,” captivated me without delay:

For those who really feel bizarre about ModRetro, it is best to know these video games aren’t unique to the Chromatic, both — they performed completely properly plugged into an Analogue Pocket or a Sport Boy Shade, and a few even labored on my 1989 unique. Some could also be obtainable to buy as ROMs. For those who simply wish to strive them, many have playable demos you possibly can strive in an emulator, and even an online browser, like this:

On a desktop, faucet to focus; press Enter to begin; use Z, B, and arrow keys to play.

It’s not clear to me how critical Luckey is about funding a brand new period of Sport Boy. For one factor, the Chromatic is already bought out at his web site, and he says he isn’t making any extra, however will deal with releasing new video games whereas it builds “one thing extra sustainable” by way of {hardware} as a substitute. (A gray Chromatic remains to be obtainable at GameStop, for now.)

Second, so far as I can inform, all of ModRetro’s video games past Tetris have been already in improvement; some, like Dragonyhm, have been already headed to cartridge elsewhere. Creating new video games isn’t at the moment an organization aim: “We’re sometimes searching for video games deep in improvement at the moment, and attempt to push them throughout the end line into being a full-on bodily good,” Herndon tells me. He says ModRetro largely pays to create cartridges, bins, and manuals, and provides builders a “fairly superior” share of gross sales.

The pre-release carts that ModRetro despatched me additionally had a pair points which are hopefully getting ironed out: I mysteriously misplaced my total save in In The Darkish 2, and Traumatarium Penitent was lacking a key bugfix the developer made nearly a 12 months in the past. Toki Tori additionally booted right into a full display screen glitch the primary few instances I began it up, however it appears to be working now.

Even when individuals love the thought of revisiting the Sport Boy and supporting retro sport improvement, I believe most will see a $200 handheld that makes you individually swap pricy cartridges as a luxurious they’ll’t afford — not when each iPhone and a mountain of Chinese language emulator handhelds can play the identical video games, ones they’ll (illicitly) obtain free of charge. 

And should you discover the Analogue Pocket isn’t classic sufficient in your tastes, you might all the time do what I simply did and add a contemporary backlit display screen to your real Nintendo Sport Boy. It gained’t be pixel-perfect, however it is perhaps adequate for me:

This is likely one of the tougher critiques I’ve ever needed to write, as a result of I’ve no qualms recommending the ModRetro Chromatic on the power of its {hardware}, which justifies its $200 worth. It feels extra just like the Sport Boy I keep in mind than a lot of Nintendo’s precise handhelds after I choose them up immediately.

However just like the Tesla Cybertruck, it’s additionally very a lot the product of 1 particular person specifically, an individual who stands for different issues which may conflict along with your beliefs, and it might wind up being an emblem that you just don’t terribly thoughts any of that, even should you truly do.   

Luckey lately advised a Pepperdine College viewers that it’s not a foul factor to have a good time the facility of weapons, saying that “societies have all the time wanted a warrior class that’s enthused and enthusiastic about enacting violence on others in pursuit of fine goals,” and that “you want individuals like me who’re sick in that manner and who don’t lose any sleep making instruments of violence.” He defined that his firm is called Anduril after Aragorn’s sword in The Lord of the Rings partly as a result of that sword was “inherently good,” and “wielded solely by the dominion of man in opposition to the hordes of Mordor.”    

Actual life incorporates no inherently good drones or inherently good missiles. And two main throughlines of Tolkien’s work are that warfare is hideous and that energy inevitably corrupts. The enjoyment I discover enjoying with faux swords within the ModRetro Chromatic is now weirdly intertwined with a basic worry: that Anduril’s actual weapons is perhaps misused. I gained’t recommend that area of interest $200 Sport Boys are literally funding these weapons in any significant manner, however these nonetheless aren’t feelings I affiliate with my childhood Nintendo expertise. 

Meaning the Chromatic isn’t the last word Sport Boy, even when it has the most effective construct high quality and the most effective display screen. There’s nonetheless room for a greater pair of rose-tinted glasses than those Luckey has paid to create. 

Images by Sean Hollister / The Verge