HyperMegaTech's Super Pocket handhelds hit the budget spot

As Sony and Microsoft continue to flog big boxes, there is room in gaming for all sizes of gadget and budgets. Meet the new handhelds from the Evercade folk at Blaze that deliver in-pocket gaming at a very fair cost. 

Update: Pre-orders live now with a range of bundles!

I love my Evercade for its looks, price, collectability and the charming community. Plus the solid product evolution to the EXP and beyond. But lots of players like a game or a publisher, and Super Pocket delivers those dreams for just £49 $/€59. With bright product design and eminent collectability, what's not to like? If you want more, there are LE translucent versions to go alongside the main editions. 

It looks like they use a condensed version of the Evercade menus, with save-and-load hopefully taking some of the arcade stress out of the tougher games. To cater for younger (or increasingly older) players, a new feature is Easy Mode, dropping the difficulty of games to improve enjoyment and accessibility.

Super Pocket's first two products are the Capcom Edition duplicating the in-built collection in the Exp, with 12 titles including Street Fighter II’: Hyper Fighting, Final Fight, Ghouls ‘N Ghosts, 1942, Captain Commando, and more along with the original console version of Mega Man.

The Super Pocket TAITO Edition comes with 17 fantastic games from the Japanese arcade giant including Space Invaders, Operation Wolf, The NewZealand Story Bubble Bobble, and more.

As a bonus, each one can take Evercade cartridges, providing a new sales stream for the Blaze manufacturers, and helping gamers get into the retro-collecting way with minimal cost or fuss. 

Pre-orders for SuperPocket, confusingly under the HyperMegaTech brand, go live this week, with the hardware arriving in November (or October if you believe the image), making a highly tempting Christmas gift. 

UPDATE: Release date confirmed for October. 

The hardware is compact at 78mm x 125mm x 25mm with the face buttons and four triggers, with a 320x280 IPS screen, audio jack and USB-C for charging. The edge material looks nice and grippy too. 

They will also find increasing competition with likes of Taito's Milestones collections on Switch and many other retro compilations. And, yes, these probably feel a bit limited in content-terms compared to the thousands of games on a Miyoo Mini.  But I'll always prefer a legit way to game, where possible. Expect a steady release of new versions based around the other Evercade Arcade releases in 2024, and who knows what else is in the pipeline.