I’m currently in the throes of post-Spring-Break blues, and jumping back into work this week was a bit challenging. (Not that I’m complaining - my “work” is literally making fun gaming videos.)

Thankfully I was able to knock the cobwebs out and deliver a couple big videos anyway!

🎥 Now Playing

Here are two video gifts for you:

Anbernic RG Vita Pro: Good Handheld, Bad Price

Anbernic's latest handheld has a sleek design, dual-boot software options, a confusing name, and a price point that doesn't reflect its performance capability. At $150 retail (+ shipping), there are simply cheaper options that are just as good, and slightly more expensive options that are a lot better. On the bright side, it is great for PSP and game streaming, but ultimately, it’s a good handheld offered at a bad price.

Retro Game Emulation on the MacBook Neo

The MacBook Neo is the new tech hotness. It’s got incredible build quality, a nice screen, long battery life, and enough juice to be a productivity monster. The kicker is that it’s $599 USD (or $499 with the student discount), which feels like a gut-punch to cheap Windows laptops and Chromebooks. I picked one up for my wife, but did some emulation testing on it first (of course).

Other Russ Sightings

• I’m back on Expedition: Handheld, where we did a deep-dive about traveling with handhelds, and discussed the current eGPU landscape and my never-ending quest to create a single-PC, dockable handheld solution.

• This week’s Nerd Nest podcast episode was a doozy, we talked about Sony’s price hikes and how they apply to the upcoming Steam Machine, and I interrogated the other panel members about what makes Crimson Desert so popular right now. We also shared our first SNES memories, celebrating its 35th year of life.

📰 Power-Up(dates)

Some cool things that happened this week:

• Which Sausage, Mate? is an upcoming PC game that is getting a free PortMaster release on April 2nd, with the full game available directly from the PortMaster app on supported handhelds. This is the first time I’ve seen a game co-launch on PortMaster, and it’s the first Unity-based PortMaster game. The PortMaster build is content-identical to the Steam version, just tuned for small screens and low-power devices.

  The developer is doing this as a thank-you to the community whose work enables games like The Binding of Isaac and Morrowind to run on “modern GameBoys”. They hope this release serves as a template for other Unity titles on PortMaster, and players who enjoy it can support the project by buying the Steam version.

  • Check out the full announcement here.

• PlayTranslate is a new Android app that provides real-time in-game translation. It overlays translations on top of games, supports instant word lookups and flashcard creation, and currently focuses on Japanese-to-English with more languages planned. RetroArch has a similar feature built in, but this one can work over any other app — imagine using this to play your favorite Japanese PS2, GameCube, and 3DS games.

• Redditor u/Mattalicious added a new “rainbow shimmer” update to the Pixel Transparency shader that mimics how a real Game Boy Color screen shimmers and shifts under sunlight using your device’s motion sensors. Follow the link to see it in action, I’ve been messing with it for the past couple days and it does provide a unique look to your GBC games, but also adds some softness to the image.

• AYANEO has emailed customers warning of impending price increases on its devices and accessories. While they haven’t shared any specifics, they have indicated that some SKUs will be temporarily discontinued (you can find screenshots of the email in my tweet right here).

  • In related news, they’ve suspended sales of the NEXT 2 handheld due to storage price spikes, pushing total production costs to nearly double the original selling price. Existing Indiegogo backers will still get their units as planned, and AYANEO says it may resume NEXT 2 sales if storage pricing returns to more reasonable levels in the future (lol).

• My buddy Kei made a new video going over every GameNative settings option; if you want to dive deeper into those configurations, check it out!

• Sony is raising the MSRP of the PS5, PS5 Pro, and the PlayStation Portal starting April 2, 2026 — citing, you guessed it, ongoing economic pressures and the need to sustain high-quality game development. Silver lining is that they gave us a few days’ heads up, compared to last summer when they raised prices with only a one-day notice. The new prices:

  • PS5 -> $649.99

  • PS5 Digital -> $599.99

  • PS5 Pro -> $899.99

  • PlayStation Portal -> $249.99

❤️ Currently Grinding

Retro Game: The Legend Of Zelda: Link’s Awakening DX

Confession: I just cannot beat this freaking game. I have gotten about 50% through it several times, but never progress any further before moving on to something else. Still, the fact that I keep restarting the game is a testament to how brilliant Link’s Awakening DX really is. My big project for this coming week is to set up the new Link’s Awakening DX HD Android port; it requires the original DX HD assets, which were available on itch.io for a hot minute a while back, and I was lucky enough to grab them then (and they can also be found on various online archives). I’m hoping the smooth-scrolling maps and wider field of view will be just what I need to make it through some of those late-game dungeons. I plan to put it on my Odin 3 and experience it with OLED deliciousness.

Modern Game: Grind Survivors

Okay, this is a good game. I played the demo a few weeks back and thought it was a pretty unique take on the Vampire Survivors formula. Basically a mishmash of Survivors and DOOM, with the atmospherics of Diablo and twin-stick gunplay à la Robotron. After a few more hours with it on my Legion Go S, I’ve come to really appreciate its leveling mechanic, in which you upgrade the guns themselves, instead of shifting over to new characters/attributes like in a lot of the other Survivors-like games out there. It’s on sale for under $10 as of writing this, and it’s an easy (albeit somewhat mindless) recommendation.

Music: José Gonzaléz - Against The Dying Of The Light

José González is one of my favorite singer-songwriters: his early work, from the mid-2000s, arrived at a perfect time for me. My hardcore-leaning musical tastes were starting to soften, and José’s nylon-string guitar and hushed folksy singing tones perfectly matched my current mood. After several divergent projects over the years, his new album Against the Dying of the Light came out this week, and it’s a true return to form: equal parts soothing and urgent, a perfect background music album. Born in Sweden to Argentenian parents, it’s really cool to see him singing songs in both Spanish and Swedish here, as complements to his usual English-based lyrics. I imagine I’ll be unpacking this beautiful album for months to come.

💰 Bargain Bin

A few deals this week:

• Arkane is having a sale on their unique brand of first-person RPGs, where the “G” stands for “Gun”.

  • Dishonored, $2.49 (normally $9.99): Link

  • Prey, $5.99 (normally $29.99): Link

  • Deathloop, $9.95 (normally $59.99): Link

• Amazon’s Big Spring Sale is happening:

  • Arzopa’s 16”, 144Hz USB-C monitor is 25% off on Amazon, bringing it below $100. It’s not a super high-quality monitor, but I’m always amazed how handy these portable monitors can be in a pinch. Affiliate / Non-Affiliate

  • 8BitDo Ultimate 2 Controller, $53.19 (usually $69.99). Super solid dockable controller with a retro-esque button feel. Affiliate / Non-Affiliate

  • FLYDIGI Vader 5 Controller, $63.99 (usually $79.99). I never made a full review video of this one, but it’s a nice PC-focused controller with the ability to adjust joystick tension directly on the controller itself. Affiliate / Non-Affiliate

  • Here’s an interesting one. I haven’t tested the Lenovo Tab One tablet myself, but it has the same chipset as the MagicX One35 (Helio G85), a 1080p screen, and a similar design language to their more premium Y700 models. It’s usually $125 but currently $90 during this sale; I’d expect to play up through PSP on this pretty well! Affiliate / Non-Affiliate

  • The Razer Kishi Ultra controller is finally at a decent price, $67.99 (usually $149.99). Affiliate / Non-Affiliate

⏪ Previously on Retro Game Corps

Is a 144Hz Portable Monitor Worth It (Arzopa Review)

With a similar model currently discounted on Amazon’s Big Spring Sale, what better time to revisit my ancient 144Hz monitor review from 2022? (The answer to the question is yes: it is worth it!)

🎬 Behind The Scenes

I forgot to mention this in last week’s newsletter, but while visiting my parents in Washington during Spring Break, we found an old six-player version of the X-Men arcade game! I hadn’t seen one in real life since I was a child, and it’s still impressively massive. Fun fact: this machine has two CRTs inside to simulate a widescreen effect. Checking it out last week, I realized that the two CRTs aren’t actually side-by-side as I always thought, but one of them is positioned in the cabinet below and then bounced/projected up next to the other CRT to create the widescreen effect. My guess is this setup is necessary since the old CRT monitors were too bulky to place them next to each other. Either way, a super cool old piece of tech.

By the way, you can easily replicate this experience via emulation, by booting up the 6-player ROM version (xmen6p) and adjusting the aspect ratio accordingly in RetroArch. It works best with ultra-wide screens (and five friends).

That’s it, see you nice week!
Russ