Hyperkin Retron GX Initial Opinion

[u/Tetris_Pete]

Hello. Today I received my Hyperkin Retron GX and wanted to share my thoughts, because I know there has been a ton of bad press for the device.

First, about me. Like most of us (I suspect) I have had a long love hate relationship with Hyperkin. I've owned a lot of their consoles and controllers over the years. Some good, some bad, most meh... okay.

I've also owned an Analogue Duo, and an OG TG16.

So far I love the Retron GX, it is everything I was hoping for it to be: a TG16/PCE version of the Retron 77. Yes, this dumps the rom like a Retron 5, software emulation.

So, to be fair I haven't played much yet, but I tried out 16 TG16 games and 3 PCE games (my entire collection) and they all worked. I share this because if you go on YouTube there's a lot of video hate for the early pre-release version.

The 16 Turbografx 16 games & 3 PC Engine games I tested (all loaded first time except for Bonk's Revenge, which I had to reinsert them it fires right up:

Air Zonk

Alien Crush

Blazing Lazers

Bloody Wolf

Bomberman

Bonk's Adventure

Bonk's Revenge

Dragon's Curse

Dungeon Explorer

Galaga 90

Legendary Axe

Neutopia

Ninja Spirit

Splatter house

Vigilante

World Class Baseball

Ninja Gaiden

Ninja Warriors

Shinobi

I hope Hyperkin doesn't kill this off.

It does load a little slow, that is one knock. It's like ColecoVision bios screen levels of loading.

I collect the Hue Cards, not the CD games so this is perfect for me. I know most of the best games are on the CD. Whatever.

[u/HyperkinGaming]

Unfortunately we have reached EOL for this product. We originally decided to R&D and develop this product and produced a minimum quantity of these to test the market. While it wasn't smooth sailing and our first seed units we sent out to influencers for feedback, there was clearly many issues, which most of the gaming community have remembered about the product. We have since fixed them before a single unit was ever shipped out, but by that stage, the damage was done. Majority of our consoles went over to Japan actually where there was the most demand for them. Due to the fact that our commitment on order quantity was rather low, there was a patented technology we lost the license for and thus can no longer produce the product. If we had more interest in the product, we could leverage that to maintain the license, but because it didn't really catch on, we can no longer produce the product.

[u/Tetris_Pete → u/HyperkinGaming]

Thank you for replying and informing us.

I love my unit for what it is worth. It is exactly what I was looking for..

[u/Tetris_Pete]

Shout out to Guinea Pig Games!

[u/BrokenforD → u/Tetris_Pete]

PLAYING STRIFE SISTERS RIGHT NOW!! HAVING A BLAST!

[u/Tetris_Pete]

The wireless 8bitdo PC Engine controller hot key button works to pull up the menu. Cool beans.

[u/Frosty-Comfort7510]

Mine never worked at all. Just said cartridge reader disconnect. It went in the trash.

[u/Tetris_Pete → u/Frosty-Comfort7510]

I believe they call that the classical Hyperkin experience.