Handheld Gaming Consoles - How Far We've Come

I am a 90's child. Born in '91 (same year as SNES), raised on a rural midwestern farm, and had nothing to do but play with sticks and float them down the irrigation runoffs in the summer. I was maybe around the age of 4 when I received my first Nintendo Entertainment System (a hand-me-down from an older cousin/aunt who upgraded their system to the Super Nintendo). I remember not understanding what to do on Zelda and that Super Mario Bros. 3 was too hard. Super Mario Bros. w/ Duck Hunt on the other hand, I remember many fond memories playing with my dad and uncle as a child. 

I was a bit too young to appreciate that console and the many groundbreaking achievements it was able to do for it's time, and when I began playing Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo when I'd visit my cousins or grandma's house (they kept one there), it really just paled in comparison to me at the time. 

Ironically we were born in the same year, but I've always had much more affinity toward the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. I envied my cousins for owning one and always looked forward to playing with them when we'd visit our grandma's house. Super Mario World was definitely our most played, but I also really enjoyed games like Zelda: A Link to the Past, Zombies Ate My Neighbors, Lion King, Nickelodeon's GUTS, and many more.

So now about 90's handhelds... I did technically have an original Game Boy at one point (released in '89), but probably much like the the NES I was a bit "bored" with what it could do. Graphics were basic, screen was small and glared reflections, it wasn't backlit, batteries weren't cheap, etc. It was just an inferior experience compared to the games I was already playing on the SNES. The Game Boy Color released in '98-'99 and while I do remember playing more games on it than it's predecessor, again it was still no match against the SNES games and NOW the Nintendo 64 console (released in '96) with it's 3D graphics that were breaking the market. But thankfully Nintendo didn't give up the dream of making gaming portable. 

In 2001 Nintendo released what I believe to be one of the most important and iconic portable handheld gaming devices of my era, the Game Boy Advance. There were SO MANY great games developed for this system! Also coming from an 8-bit system on the GBC to 32-bits on the GBA, all the games looked much more colorful and filled out with detail! The original release wasn't perfect, also lacking a backlight, and so I also remember using a 3rd part adapter to clamp onto the front with a magnifying glass and lights that lit the screen. It was so nice being able to play games on car rides after dark back then! Eventually they updated the device in 2005 and since then all games are now backlit (Halleluiah! You kids today don't know how much of an eye strain that was!). The GBA also featured a link cable port, which allowed players to connect 2 or more GBAs together for multiplayer gaming! There's certainly too many great games to list for the GBA so I will pick out 3 on my top 10 that you NEED TO PLAY if you haven't: 1) Final Fantasy VI Advance, 2) The Legend of Zelda - The Minish Cap, 3) Dragon Ball Z: Legacy of Goku II.

Nintendo created a clam shell pocket gaming device with 2 screens and a stylus called the Nintendo DS in 2004. Many games were then being designed to interact with touching the screen. I don't remember the game library being quiet as enticing to me at the time, and this is where I started falling away from Nintendo (after LOVING my GameCube, N64, SNES, and GBA devices). I was also getting into Jr. High/High School and would sadly only focus on sports and sports related games during those years. Also Call of Duty, don't forget that! Obviously those types of games were superior on the PlayStation 2 and 3 consoles so that's all that existed at my house.

Sony released a handheld of their own, the PlayStation Portable, in 2004-2005. I think the design of the device was like an improved version of the GBA. It's intention was to make many of the release on the PS2/PS3 also available on the go on a portable device. The games weren't as graphically as impressive as their console counterparts, but it was still a huge leap in the right direction in portable handhelds. Devices of this era also started to be able to connect via Bluetooth and WIFI and multiplayer became more accessible than ever before.

I think I had mostly given up on portable gaming and only preferred console gaming with their superior graphics in a cozy room with a bigger TV screen and comfortable chair. Eventually I got more interested in RPGs and began enjoying more of the solo gaming experiences. For me the PS2 and PS3 gave me both of those experiences. FREE online multiplayer COD with my uncle (although my rural internet connection sucked), and experiencing games like inFamous, The Last of Us, and Elder Scrolls by myself. 

One of the few RPGs I obsessed over during those years was Kingdom Hearts, and I was patiently waiting YEARS for the 3rd game to be releases on the PS4 (released in 2013). The game was finally released in 2019 and it was a huge disappointment. But the biggest disappointment about the PS4 was they follow XBox's greedy scheme and started charging players for PlayStation Plus, online access for multiplayer gaming. The PS3 will forever be peak PlayStation to me as that's when quality achieved such huge heights and offered online gaming with friends for free. 

Because the PS4 rubbed me the wrong way, it was time for me to follow my brother's footsteps and I switched to PC gaming. In 2016 I assembled my first computer, began gaming on Steam (mostly), and haven't looked back! I love that they have remasters of some older games I've cherished from my yesteryears as well as remakes and brand new titles. I can even port my old games onto a drive and emulate them all on one computer device! Woah... now I feel like I've walked into the twilight zone. But it gets even deeper...

As a kid I never would have imagined being able to play all my favorite games all on one device! Never did I think it'd also be portable! I remember at one point just begging Sony and Nintendo to make consoles backwards compatible so that we could continue to play the games we've already purchased! But each year it was like keeping up with the Jones's. Computer gaming satisfied an itch I never knew I had until I realized how crippled and capitalistic gaming consoles really are. I haven't even needed to upgrade components in over 7 years! That being said, there are days I look back and miss playing my GBA on long car rides or lounging at a campground playing Pokémon. Then in 2022 Steam announced a device that opened up new possibilities in my sheltered world: the Steam Deck.

The Steam Deck blew my mind and excited me for the future direction of gaming. Steam is making games portable again! (Move over Nintendo, the Switch is in trouble!) I won't go into too much detail about the Steam deck, but if you want a device that will mostly do it all and money is no option it's a no brainer. It's capable of handling nearly all retro games as well as AAA new release Steam titles. But if money IS a factor, then there are MANY budget handheld options that can ALSO play up to AAA game titles (with some software/settings tweaking). 

I'll feature some of the coolest budget retro handhelds that I would consider today, I'll talk about the retro handheld I decided to purchase, and showcase some of the other Steam Deck competitors that might be worth considering! I'll start with the smallest, cheapest, and maybe even coolest device: 

Anbernic RG Nano Retro 

ANBERNIC RG NANO Specifications:

🎮 System: Linux.🎮 Color: Purple/Red/Blue🎮 Memory: along with 64G TF internal memory, support TF card expansion🎮 Screen: 1.54-inch IPS full-fit screen, resolution 240*240 CPU:ARM Cortex-A7 @ 1.2Ghz🎮RAM:64 MB DDR2🎮Game: Supports more than 10 kinds of format games.Support users to download games in related formats.🎮Language: Chinese/English.🎮Speaker: Hi-fi speaker🎮Battery: Polymer lithium-ion battery 1050 mAh, lasting 2.5 hours🎮Power Dissipation：owered by an ARM Cortex-A7 CPU @ 1.2Ghz and 64MB DDR2 RAM, 

Continue for more great handhelds!