Anbernic RG35XX SP Review

For a long time now the Chinese company Anbernic have been responsible for putting out of the best quality emulation handheld devices around so, being a sucker for a clamshell device, was quite excited when I read a few months ago of rumours of their first such device and am happy to say it’s now been released in the form of the RG35XX SP.  Now I know what you’re thinking - this looks just like a Gameboy Advance SP and you’d be right (although this is slightly bigger, thicker and wider than a GBA SP) but that’s where the similarities end.

Firstly the increased size, thickness and width of the device make it much more comfortable to hold than a GBA SP and the build quality is excellent although the d-pad and face buttons are a bit loud and clicky but not overly so.  The firmware supplied on the machine is a big improvement from that offered by Anbernic on previous devices but is not perfect by any means, I personally would recommend installing some custom firmware such as MinUI, muOS or Knulli, I went for muOS and am glad I did as it’s excellent, really easy to set up, user friendly with a gorgeous black and gold theme, it performs perfectly with all systems up to and including PS1.  The screen is just the right size and is bright and colourful.

I absolutely love this little machine, the Gameboy Advance SP has always been one of my favourite Nintendo handhelds so to have something like this from Anbernic that not only plays GBA but many other systems too in a pocketable device is pretty awesome, a highly recommended handheld and one of the best from Anbernic for a very long time.

The EZ-Flash Omega Definitive Edition (GBA) & EZ-Flash Parallel (DS) Flash Carts are so convenient!

Flash Carts are a great way of building and accessing a collection of roms from the one place and two of the best I now own are the EZ-Flash Omega Definitive Edition for the Gameboy Advance and the newly released EZ-Flash Parallel for the Nintendo DS, for those who don’t know how these work, basically an blank SD card is needed to copy your required game roms to, this then fits inside the flash cart which then goes inside your machine, as you can see from the right hand photo of the EZ-Flash Parallel in action on my DS your games will then appear as a list for you to play.

Both carts are easy to set up as full instructions are provided on the EZ-Flash website and once set up both interfaces are attractive and very user friendly.  The software for the Parallel (pictured) looks particularly attractive I think although the EZ-Flash Omega DE software (below) looks pretty good too, since I have over 800 GBA games on this I’ve arranged it by individual A-Z folders making it much easier to track down the required game I wish to play.

The performance of both flash carts is flawless and the games look fantastic, I’m really glad I bought both of these and to have so many games together and accessible in one place is so convenient.

The Kirby games on the Nintendo DS are actually rather good!

For a long time now I’ve absolutely loved the Kirby games right back to the early titles on the original Gameboy (in fact one of my favourite games ever is Kirby’s Pinball Land on it) but based on previous experiences had always thought that the Kirby games on the Nintendo DS somehow weren’t as good, however following a go on all four yesterday I’m happy to be proved wrong, they’re easily some of the best and most innovative Kirby games around!

The Kirby games on the DS are : Kirby Mass Attack, Kirby Squeak Squad, Kirby Power Paintbrush and Kirby Superstar Ultra.  The most innovative of these is Power Paintbrush which is playable only using the stylus and touch-screen allowing you to do such things as using the stylus to draw a rainbow wall/path to allow Kirby to reach higher platforms and stop them from falling off the edge of platforms, now you’d think a Kirby game that only uses the stylus and touch-screen would be quite frustrating but after a few minutes gameplay it becomes quite intuitive and really rather fun!   Kirby Mass Attack also makes extensive use of the touch-screen, the only rather frustrating thing about this title is you need a certain number of Kirbys (which can be added during the level) before you can unlock the next level but this does add an additional challenge to the game however.

The other two titles, Squeak Squad and Superstar Ultra both play more like a traditional Kirby title using the d-pad and face buttons.  The levels on all four titles look amazing and as with most Kirby titles have really catchy music.

If you’re a fan of the Kirby franchise I’ve no hesitation at all in recommending these four titles for your collection, they’re really great fun!