Before you buy Anbernic RG35XX Plus...
Are you looking for things that can play Game Boy advanced games, some Nintendo DS games and even a little bit of N64 all in the form factor of a Game Boy? This is the ANBERNIC RG35XX PLUS and they've made a few big upgrades before we dive into this video. So this is ANBERNIC 's New Edition into their game boy style emulator lineup.
This is a Linux-based tiny game boy style handheld that has face buttons, trigger buttons, a new removable battery, inlaid power reset and volume rockers USBC charging and a headphone jack. It's also got two SD card slots. They haven't really changed the screen or the body size of this device. But what they've done is just very slightly improved a few things on the physical side of this device. The triggers have been changed just a hair. They just molded them a little bit differently so that when you grip the device.
It's a just a hair difference and you can tell where the buttons end with this iteration. We actually have a bunch of different colors now, which this time around are gray white and transparent black. It's an ABS construction with the 3.5 in IPS p panel that's 640x 480 resolution a gig of RAM. We have Bluetooth, Wi-Fi as well a nice bigger 3300mAh battery. You also have a mini HDMI port for out. But I think this device is best suited for the pocket that takes care of the physicals for this device.
Let's take a look at the software. This is a Linux-based device that is running retro arch and drastic for the Nintendo DS emulation basically. What this device is running on is a port of Linux that you are able to basically strip down and run just emulators on. So when it loads up, it loads ANBERNIC front end which consists of a few different things. These are all the emulators that are built into the device and have all of the BIOS already on the device. So you can actually just pull the SD card out and drop whatever ROM you want on it.
For these devices you see here, their front end is set up with a few different things. They have one section that is called game rooms. The next one is retro arc games and the favorites tab which you can select any game or emulator for. It'll just put it all in a list. And then your history now. I did notice that the settings on the game rooms are set up based on what ANBERNIC chose for screen overlays and all that sort of stuff. So those are the basic options for each game grouping based on what ANBERNIC thought was the best.
If you don't like something or want to run directly into retro arc, all you have to do is to go into the game section, which is all of the stuff you see here. Where it can play up to PS1 games, PSP games not all the way Pico 8 games, which are very fun and it can even run some Nintendo DS games and some N64 games. We'll get into the caveats later in addition to all those nice new settings. We have a bit more power in this device for our emulation.
Let's talk about that power. Everything from the 16bit era and Below will play absolutely fantastic on this device. Any PS1 game will play great, and any Game Boy advanced game or game ROM hack is fantastic on this device. Or any of the other Classics like SNES Game Boy Color vertical arcade games Neo Geo and other stuff like that work perfectly fine. We get into differences is at the PSP Nintendo DS and N64 eras. The PSP won't run all of the games but it will run some of the PSP games fine.
Keep in mind the PSP games are made for a 16x9 device and this is not a 16x9 device. This is more of a square aspect ratio so the PSP on this device in my opinion is not the greatest. Now you could play some things like loor Roo Works plenty fine on this. Because it's kind of a game you really only need the center of the screen for anyway. You're just using two left and right triggers to move the the little ball around. So it's cool that they included PSP on this device and that you can load up ROM and put whatever you want on here.
But I am having lots of issues with the audio crackling now. Game play seems to be like 90% of the way there. I did notice slowdowns when a lot of thing happened at once in Mario Kart. It's one of those things that it does play on here. But I did notice a bunch of slowdowns. So it's one of those things where if you're okay with this type of emulation on this. Because you don't have a joystick and you might have to do some different mapping to even get it to work. I didn't some stuff my guesses will get weird.
I wouldn't recommend this for N64 but it does play it. And I think that's cool now Nintendo DS is kind of where this gets interesting. The screen sizes are relatively close, so you can see it is compared to a Nintendo DS XL and also a Nintendo DS here. They're pretty close. So it looks a little fuzzy but it's totally playable on this and being able to switch between the two screens.
But the one thing that's going to suck is like castlevania has a bunch of different pentagrams and things. You need to sign when you kill a boss and have to switch back into drastic to change your button layout to make the pen work with your d-pad. It is kind of a pain in the butt. So if it's a game that you need just like the touch screen right at the beginning. When you make your character and then never again like Pokemon, you could definitely get away with playing like Pokemon Platinum through the whole game and not having to deal with it now.
Using the touchscreen to decide what attacks you're using. So you'd have to flip between them to know which ones you're selecting. Because you can still use the d-pad controls so again. It's really cool that they added this functionality. The Miyoo Mini Plus can also do the same thing. But it's one of those things where I think we're starting to get to the top of the form factor for this device. What we can play on this device easily versus something else that would possibly need two screens.
I do have to say though I will be playing Nintendo DS Pokémon games on here. We'll see how long it takes to get used to that. So this device is actually pretty cool because you're a able to run some of the heavier hitting systems. And I think you're really maxing out the physical dimensions of this device. If you're looking for something that say plays PSP 100%, I don't actually think that this device is for that. It's cool that you can do that some of it there's problems all over the place.
But I think this device is mainly for stuff like Game Boy advanced games, throwing some ROM hacks on there that you haven't played on a device versus your computer. And I think most of the stuff is you're really just looking to emulate. Some of those either 4x3 or 1:1 aspect ratio games that just feel better on a device in front of you versus your keyboard and mouse. It's just feels a little bit different when you have it in the pocket versus sitting at your desk. So what do I like about this device is basically at the power it needs to be for what you want to play in the form factor.
There is the Miyoo Mini Plus which there's a lot more stock available but I actually like this device better due to the ergonomics. So I have larger hands I can Palm a basketball. The steam deck is my personal size device when I go out. It's really just a choice of preference here and I think either device for around 80 bucks. You can't go wrong now. Their software is still being developed the previous version of this had garlic OS come out for it and you could do a bunch of different stuff with it. So you could Tinker a little bit more and get the device to run a little bit better and use it to do different things, like be able to suspend games and have a game switcher.
This iteration is actually very usable and it's clean so if you're looking for something that has this aesthetic or you're looking for something like the Miyoo Mini Plus. I have a video for you. They're right here. Both of which are good, so if you want to learn more about the Miyoo Mini Plus or the other stuff. Take a look, and it's free click on them. It's got great stuff inside possibly pickles no it's Christmas time soup definitely soup that's all I got I'm out.
