Only two videos this week, but one was feature-length, so I think we’re good.

🎥 Now Playing

Retroid Pocket Nova Starter Guide

Here is my start-to-finish guide for completely setting up the Retroid Pocket Nova. It’s over two hours long, but I think it’s important to go over every little detail. Luckily there are plenty of chapters so you can jump around if you’d like!

Mangmi Air Y Review: Surprisingly Good

The Mangmi Air Y handhelds are releasing in a saturated market - we have a ton of vertical devices to choose from. But surprisingly, both the Air Y (Snapdragon 662) and Air Y Pro (Snapdragon 865) fill a gap in the handheld niche with their competitive price and performance.

Other Russ Sightings:

• Expedition: Handheld - In Entry #25, Adam and I were joined by special guest Your Cool Uncle Marisa to chat about all things modding.

• Retro Handhelds - both RGC and Retro Handhelds celebrated our six year anniversaries this week, so we did a livestream breaking down our favorite handhelds from each year we’ve been around (2020-2026).

📰 Power-Up(dates)

• Redditor u/PhyFawkes is doing what the gods intended: taking a Steam Deck and squeezing it into a Game Boy-inspired vertical shell. The SteamBoy currently functions as a TV controller while the developer works out BIOS tweaks and screen integration via custom adapters. The catch is that tiny fan mounted on the back, which suggests thermally demanding games are off the table. But for emulation via EmuDeck? Perfect. The project uses all genuine Deck parts, including the motherboard, buttons, speakers, and battery. It's a weirdly clever form-factor experiment that I’m now firmly invested in seeing finished.

• A dev called Inside Internet just dropped Asobi, a new PS4 and PS5 streaming client on Steam that turns any x86 handheld into a PS Portal. The free version caps out at 1080p/30fps SDR with basic remote streaming, but the paid tier (single in-app purchase, price TBD) unlocks full controller support, HDR, 1080p/60fps streaming, 4K upscaling up to 120fps, low-latency modes, gyro input, and haptic feedback. It's still in "Playtest" phase, but I think its value is immediately transparent: if you own an x86 handheld and already have a PS4/PS5 at home, you've now got a Portal alternative without the $200 price tag and locked ecosystem. If you don’t want to wait for its full public release, you could always try out other options like the new Chiaki NG (Next-Gen) that’s been getting high marks this year.

• Developer Sapphire Rhodonite's Android DS emulator just shed its melonDualDS moniker for WatermelonDS, marking more than a name change: v0.7.0 brings a refreshed UI with improved ROM list display and RetroAchievements support. The big technical addition is an experimental Vulkan FastPath designed to boost performance at high internal resolutions (8x upscaling in some cases), plus RetroArch shader preset support across all renderers. For the Anbernic RG DS crew, Sapphire also dropped SeedlessDS, a lightweight fork that trades some performance optimization for stability on lower-end hardware. RetroAchievements got special attention too, including offline Casual mode play. Both builds are now live on GitHub, with WatermelonDS positioning itself as the full-featured option and SeedlessDS filling the gap for power-constrained devices.

• After over a decade in development, fan game Donkey Kong Country 4: The Kong's Return is launching this November with Donkey, Diddy, Dixie, and Kiddy alongside Chunky, Tiny, and Lanky from Donkey Kong 64 - a veritable greatest-hits Kong roster in one SNES-style package. The dev team reimplemented the original trilogy's pre-rendered sprite work and aesthetics for a hypothetical fourth numbered entry that Rare never made. All returning animal buddies are present (Rambi, Squitter, and crew), and the whole thing ships November 18th on PC and as a downloadable ROM. Check out some footage here.

• The fan-made decompilation of the original Spyro the Dragon is now publicly available on Windows via the OpenPETE project. The port uses an AI-assisted translation framework to convert PlayStation MIPS code to native PC binaries. The result runs at 60fps+ with true widescreen, perspective-correct textures, eliminated polygon wobble, and extended draw distances. You'll need to supply your own legal disc image to run it, but setup is straightforward. This accelerates what was expected to take years into a practical reality, but has also ignited further discussions online about using AI assistance for game preservation.

• Finally, developer Shane McCafferty just released Wolf, a Game Boy Color FPS that shouldn't exist on a handheld designed exclusively for 2D. Built with a custom ray-tracing engine, it transforms the 160x144 screen into textured corridors, bold color palettes, and enemy encounters reminiscent of Wolfenstein 3D. McCafferty, who previously ported OutRun and Roguecraft to GBC, engineered around the system's palette constraints (8 palettes of 4 colors each, per 8x8 tile) by finding optimal color matches for each rendered corridor. The technical achievement alone is impressive, and you can check it out on itch.io right now.

❤️ Currently Grinding

This week, I’m going to highlight three PC game demos I played on my MSI Claw; each are heavily inspired by retro classics. All of these games had official releases this week too.

Demo #1: Aero GPX

You might be able to call it from the title and artwork alone, but Aero GPX is essentially a modern reimagining of F-Zero. While the demo lacks some of the detail and clever track layouts of F-Zero GX, it makes up for it in speed, with some moments that are blisteringly fast. Its $20 retail price is a little steep (even if it is on sale for $17 right now), but definitely give the demo a try because it might be your next speed-racing jam.

Demo #2: Wild Blue Skies

The majority of the negative reviews for Wild Blue Skies seem to lament that this one flies too closely to Star Fox 64, but I don’t mind that at all. This on-rails shooter certainly feels like the old N64 classic, especially considering that the characters are anthropomorphic animals (but see, the main character is a dog, not a fox!). At least as far as the demo is concerned, it’s a serviceable on-rails shooter that looks great and runs really nicely on my handheld PC. $15 is a fair price for what you get, and I think among the three this one is my favorite.

Demo #3: Duskfade

Duskfade is a self-described “love letter to classic 3D action platformers”, and I would argue it’s a bit more than that. It certainly feels like a PS2-era platformer (think Ratchet & Clank), but it also has a bit of Kingdom Hearts vibe to it as well, with somewhat cutesy enemies and Japanese-inspired character aesthetics. The game feels really nicely polished, so if you’re looking for a modern romp through Generation Six classics, this should suit your fancy. The demo for this one doesn’t seem to be available online anymore, but you can grab the full game for $24 this week (retail is $30).

💰 Bargain Bin

• Amazon is looking to eat iFixIt’s lunch with their extremely cheap screwdriver sets. Both of these include precision bits for electronics repairs and modifications and are significantly cheaper than iFixIt’s offerings. In terms of quality, you get what you pay for, but for the weekend warriors out there, this may be just the ticket.

  • Amazon Basics Precision Screwdriver Set, 32-Piece Electronics Repair Tool Kit ($14) Affiliate / Non-affiliate

  • Amazon Basics Magnetic Ratcheting Wrench and Electronics Precision Screwdriver Tool Set, 73-Piece ($24) Affiliate / Non-affiliate

• Over on Fanatical, 2K is having a massive publisher sale. Click the link for the full (massive) list, or look below for some really sweet deals!

  • OlliOlli World, $4 or $8 for the Rad Edition

  • Marvel’s Midnight Suns, $8

  • BioShock: The Collection, $10

  • Mafia: Trilogy, $10

  • Borderlands: The Handsome Collection, $13

• Meanwhile, Humble Bundle is having their annual Summer Sale. A lot of those same 2K games are featured, as well as dozens of other games with some pretty serious savings to be found. Check out some selections below!

  • Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Breakpoint, $3

  • Slay The Spire, $6

  • Lost Judgement, $12

  • Grand Theft Auto V Enhanced, $15

  • Absolum, $18

  • Street Fighter 6, $20

  • Alan Wake II, $21

  • Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, $24

  • Sonic Racing: Crossworlds, $27

• Here is a random one: Walmart now sells restored Nintendo DS models. Grab a black DS Lite with Walmart’s easy return policy for $120! Non-affiliate

⏪ Previously on Retro Game Corps

I Put Windows 11 On My Odin

These days it seems there is always some new firmware project for the various handhelds on the market, whether it’s SteamOS coming to ARM devices, or Android getting ported to under-powered devices made for lightweight Linux builds. This week, let’s revisit one project that never quite got off the ground: Windows 11 on the original Odin. This method never quite got to the point where it was useable, and has been made mostly obsolete by options like GameNative. But for a brief second in 2022, it almost seemed like the future.

🎬 Behind The Scenes

I shared some details yesterday in a YouTube Community Post, but this week my close friend and bandmate Chris was killed. He fell victim to a senseless act of violence, fatally stabbed while walking to work Thursday morning. We’re all still processing this tragedy, and trying to find our own way to mourn the exceptional and gentle person he was.

The reason I am sharing this in a retro gaming newsletter is because he left behind his wife, who depended on him as the family's sole source of income. I cannot even imagine what she is going through, they had been together for nearly 30 years. His sister has started up a GoFundMe page to help her navigate this difficult time. Please don't feel pressured to donate, but if you feel compelled to do so, it would mean a lot to me and his family.

For the past several years, our band had been painstakingly writing and recording a new album, our first since 2008. We’re going to finish the album, taking care to honor his vision. In the meantime, I'm going to share an early demo song we recorded a few years ago, so you can experience the singular creative force that was Chris. He was unafraid to mix beauty with ugliness, the best of us and our worst; his art was always purposefully flawed, and distinctly human.

And please, let this be a gentle reminder to hug your loved ones, and call an old friend; tell them you love them while you can.

Take care,
Russ