Gamers everywhere love their classic games. Retro gaming is a big business these days and the console makers have responded by finding new ways to release old games to feed into our nostalgia. The release of mini classic consoles allows players to experience their favourite games from the past with consoles and controllers deisgned to look like the originals and people love to get them. In this list we’ll go over the top ten retro mini gaming consoles! Enjoy!
Number 10: The Game Gear Micro
At the bottom of our list is the Game Gear Micro. After several years of home consoles being given the classic mini treatment, and fans hoping Nintendo would launch a Game Boy Classic Mini, Sega beat them to the punch with the Game Gear Micro.
And oh boy is it micro indeed! The original Game Gear was fairly huge compared to the Game Boy, and that was a contributing factor to why it didn’t have the success of the Game Boy. It was too big to be as realistically portable. It wouldn’t just slip into your pocket.
Well Sega clearly felt they had something to prove here as the Game Gear Micro is so small, it’s not actually that easy to see or play. With a 2.9cm screen it is tiny. Sega didn’t seem to learn from Nintendo’s own Game Boy Micro console not being a big hit after people that it was a bit too small. And that was huge compared to this.
The further downside of the Game Gear Micro is that you need to buy four consoles to get different games that were made available when this launched. Each version, which comes in a different colour, only has four games a piece. Now I don’t care how micro they say this is, a micro SD card can hold a terabyte of date, so there’s no way they couldn’t have fit all 16 games onto one system.
The Game Gear Micro only released in Japan, which is a shame, and if you’re looking to pick up just one I’d suggest the black one as it has Sonic the Hedgehog (Game Gear version not the Mega Drive version), Out Run, Puyo Puyo 2 and Royal Stone.
Number 9: C64 Mini
The Commodore 64 is a computer that many people of a certain age will remember having in the 1980s. It’s what Commodore released before they released the Amiga range of computers.
Featuring a massive list of 64 games built into the console, The C64 Mini will give you plenty to get on with. I would warn that you should go into this for the nostalgia and not expect these to be games that blow your mind nowadays. That isn’t to say the games are bad, but they come from an era where things were more advanced than Pong and Space Invaders, but not quite into the league of the NES or Amiga that would come shortly after.
It does feature some great games like Speedball 2, Impossible Mission, Boulder Dash and California Games, but there are better versions of many of the games available elsewhere. Still, I would recommend that even if you didn’t have the Commodore 64 back in the day there is plenty to have fun with, and it’s a good gaming history lesson to see what games were like on this classic machine.
The joystick that comes with the C64 is good if not great. It features plenty of buttons and is reminiscent of joysticks from the era, but certain games would feel more comfortable to play these days with a gamepad.
A downside of the C64 Mini is that whilst designed to look exactly like a Mini Commodore 64, the keyboard on the device is purely cosmetic, and whilst you can plug in a USB keyboard if you want to, out of the box you will be stuck using a pop up virtual keyboard which is a pain for games that need it.
As a final note, the company that make it, Retro Games LTD, clearly understood what players wanted these mini consoles for and built in the ability for players to add roms of games not included on the console. This is great as people had to hack other mini consoles for the same purpose.
Number 8: Capcom Home Arcade
So, this one isn’t strictly a mini console…really in any way. The thing is bigger than a PS5 (probably doesn’t weigh more – I haven’t checked) and it’s not based on a past console. But it is a plug and play console in its own right and it does aim to bring classic games to a modern television so we’ll count it.
Featuring two full sized arcade sticks built into the unit, the Capcom Home Arcade will need to sit on a tabletop for you and a friend to play together. The stick and buttons feel great, and the design of the machine is literally a giant Capcom logo, which if you’re buying this thing I’m sure will be nostalgic to you. If you don’t have any attachment or nostalgia for Capcom this thing is pretty garish…but hey you can’t blame them for going all in on their own brand.
There are only 16 games on the device which is the lowest of our list today, but these are all arcade perfect versions of some of Capcom’s most famous games…if not all of the ones you could have hoped for.
You get Street Fighter 2 here, but really strangely you don’t get a version of Super Street Fighter 2. Maybe Capcom wanted to get in on the mini console business but didn’t want to step on the toes of their deal with Arcade 1Up and make the Street Fighter 2 home arcade machine redundant.
Other games include Ghould n Ghosts, Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo and Final Fight. It’s also cool to see games like Mega Man The Power Battle and Alien vs Predator on here. The latter proves that licensing deals could be worked out for the Atari Jaguar Alien vs Predator game to one day see the light of day again.
Number 7: PC Engine CoreGrafx Mini
The PC Engine isn’t as well known in the UK and the US as it is in Japan, but whilst this competitor to the NES didn’t win it’s console war it was home to a great selection of games.
Great games on the mini console include Splatterhouse, Space Harrier and Bonk’s Revenge. Fans of the classic Legend of Zelda games will enjoy Neutopia 1 and 2, Parasol Stars is the largely forgotten sequel to Rainbow Islands.
Other cool games to play include Bomberman 93 and Bomberman 94 and Castlevania Rondo of Blood.
Number 6: Neo Geo
Released to celebrate the 40th anniversary of SNK, the Neo Geo Mini features 40 classic games. Unlike most on this list, the Neo Geo Mini can be used as a standalone mini arcade machine as it has a built in screen and joystick. This is great if you wanted to take something fun on a trip somewhere, but this isn’t a portable that you can put in your pocket. You’ll still need to plug it in to the mains, and you’ll be best served to play this with it on a table and not on your lap.
The good news is that you can use a mini HDMI cable to plug it into the television and you can get a Neo Geo CD style joypad to plug in for an extra controller, or if you don’t want to use the mini arcade stick. But as any Neo Geo purest will tell you, the joypad doesn’t feature the same kind of micro switches for the directions as the original.
Games included on the device include a ton of games from the King of Fighter, Metal Slug and Fatal Fury series of games. If you don’t like any of those I’m afraid to say they are a big portion of the games available. There are also plenty of other games to get on with such as Blazing Star, Top Player’s Golf and Robo Army.
