Four videos this week! Two big reviews and a couple other fun explorations to boot.

🎥 Now Playing

Retroid Pocket Duo In-Depth Review

In a sea of recent dual-screen handheld releases, the Retroid Pocket Duo is my favorite for actual dual-screen gaming, and this video will demonstrate why (it mostly has to do with the screens and the device’s responsive inputs). The Duo has its share of flaws, but when it hits, it hits just right.

All Handhelds are Magical (to Someone)

This video a friendly reminder that cheaper and older handhelds can still be as magical as the latest (and priciest) options. Sometimes the only main difference is context.

ROG Xbox Ally X20 In-Depth Review

After months of waiting, the ROG Xbox Ally X20 is finally here, with some nice refinements over last year's model. Let's take a look and see if it justifies the $300 price increase.

A Nice Little Boost for XBox Ally Handhelds

Right after finishing my review, AMD expanded FSR 4.1 support to more devices, including the Z2E APUs found in the Xbox Ally X handhelds. Here is a showcase of eight games, to see what sort of upscaling improvements you can expect. Other supported handheld APUs: Strix Halo, HX 370, and the Z2A.

Other Russ Sightings:

Retro Handhelds - I joined Stubbs and Rob in their livestream review of the Retroid Pocket Duo, and also sharing some thoughts about the Odin 3 Portal. My favorite part of the livestream was when someone suggested new drivers for the Duo that I tried on the spot (and they were actually pretty great drivers).

Expedition: Handheld - In Entry #35 Adam and I take you through the latest Anbernic and Ayn product launches, why FSR 4.1 is a big deal for handhelds, what was inside the package I sent to Adam, and more.

Nerd Nest - The full crew (all five of us) jumped online to chat about the games we’ve been playing (Castlevania for me) and some gaming news, plus lots of random jokes.

📰 Power-Up(dates)

• Delta, one of iOS’s most popular emulators, has launched its 2.0 update just in time for Apple’s foldable iPhone Duo. The update adds unfolded DS support that puts games to sleep when the phone closes, along with Sega Genesis/Mega Drive emulation, a Liquid Glass interface, RetroAchievements sign-in, and custom filters including CRT. It’s also the first time Delta is available on the EU App Store, made possible by the removal of Apple’s Core Technology Fee. Delta 2.0 is available now from the App Store.

• Anbernic has released version 1.1 of their stock Linux firmware for the RG DS, which adds Vulkan rendering to the built-in PSP emulator, and upgrades the NNDDSS DS emulator to version 1.0.2 (which itself added 2x resolution options and fast-forward). A long-requested option also lets you switch off the unused screen during single-screen games, which should ease display concerns and help battery life. The build weighs nearly 2GB and requires re-flashing the microSD card, so back up your data first. Grab the download from Anbernic’s official site.

• The Miyoo Mini Plus V2 is now available from GoGameGeek (affiliate / non-affiliate) in four colors, with the main change being a move from the SigmaStar SSD202D to the Rockchip RK3562 processor. The 3.5-inch 640x480 IPS display, 3000mAh battery, and 200-gram body are otherwise largely unchanged from the original. The RK3562 should boost performance enough to make titles from the Dreamcast, N64, and PSP potentially playable, though the device’s 128MB of RAM tempers those expectations. It retails for $70, though if its your first time shopping the site, you can enter your email for a 10% coupon. Still no word on a release date for the Miyoo Flip V3.

• Retroid has announced mainline Linux support for three of its devices: the Pocket 6, Pocket Nova, and the Pocket Duo. The release is based on Linux Kernel 7.3, and Retroid has published the kernel, audio topology, and UCM config through its GitHub. Touchscreen, joystick RGB lighting, audio, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, GPU video decode and encode, USB-C DisplayPort, and fan control already work, though audio requires both the topology and UCM config to be installed.

• Nodosumi is a new open-source Dreamcast emulator from developer cloudwithax, tuned specifically for Anbernic’s H700-powered handhelds. Written in C and derived from the Redream project, it uses an AArch64 JIT recompiler optimized for the H700’s Cortex-A53 cores, with the bold claim of full-speed Dreamcast emulation on that meager hardware. It ships as a libretro core for RetroArch, and it supports save states, multi-disc .m3u playlists, and the .cdi, .chd, .gdi, and .cue formats. The repository is brand new and seemingly vibe-coded, but early testing does indeed show games like Crazy Taxi 2 playing at full speed without frameskip.

❤️ Currently Grinding

Retro Game: Super Mario Land (GB)

Believe it or not, Super Mario Land is one of my favorite Mario games. Part of that comes from the sheer amazement I felt when first seeing the Game Boy handheld itself — I remember a friend brought it over to my house one summer afternoon, and I was enamored. The graphics kinda sucked, it was hard to see Mario because he was so small, and the way the fireballs bounced off the screen really melted my brain. But there was a distinct b-movie quality to it that I liked, and it felt sort of like a mix between an old Game & Watch title and a full-fledged platformer.

Even today, I like to sit down with this game every once in a while and see how far I can get in one sitting (it’s never far, but always fun). A few years ago I converted the game to Super Mario Land DX via this romhack, which essentially makes it look like a GBC game. While it’s kind of neat to try, I only played this version a few times before just going back to the OG classic.

Modern Game: Castlevania - Belmont’s Curse (PC)

I’m not very far in this recently-released Castlevania game, but I have enjoyed it quite a bit so far. It’s set about 25 years after NES classic Castlevania III, and you play as Rose Belmont, the daughter of Trevor Belmont. The gameplay is relatively fast-paced, and you can use your whip to pull off trapeze-style moves that help with exploration. The boss fights are pretty rough, but thankfully there are some difficulty sliders in the settings menu so you can tune the game to suit your preferred difficulty level.

I’ve been trying it on various devices, with mixed success: the game itself is rather demanding, even handhelds like the Xbox Ally X20 require about 17W of power to play smoothly. Solutions like GameNative and DroidDeck have been pretty challenging on my Odin 3, with enough stutters and slowdowns for me to pause my game progress on those apps and switch back to an actual PC handheld. Hopefully we see optimizations in the future, because I’d love to have this game on the go with a smaller Android handheld.

Book: Children of Memory by Adrian Tchaikovsky

About six newsletters ago I finished Tchaikovsky’s sci-fi epic Children of Ruin, and wrote that I wasn’t sure if I would read this third book in the series. My hesitance came from the story’s large and expanding ensemble cast, which was starting to complicate my relaxing nighttime reading habits (I usually prefer a fairly straight-lined story to enjoy as I’m winding down in the evenings). But I’m generally a reader who sticks to his guns, so I trudged through this third book over the past several weeks, and finished it the other day.

I’ve been deliberately cryptic about these books, because I'‘d like to avoid spoiling the story for anyone. But I will say that this book thankfully shrank down its ensemble cast into just a few main characters, which I think helped to focus the narrative more on the story itself rather than the people in it. Children of Memory is also a bit of a mind-bender, because it is told from the perspectives of unreliable narrators, whose memories are all over the place (hence the title of this book). It was challenging to keep straight, but the payoff at the end was worth it.

One of my favorite things to do after reading a book is to check out user and critic reviews of the title, to see how it aligns to my own experience. I was not surprised to find that this is a divisive title, with many readers complaining that it was difficult to sit through, and somewhat repetitive. I don’t disagree, but honestly I liked the central mystery of this story more than the previous book in this series, and I liked it enough to dive right into the fourth (and most recent) release, Children of Strife, which I’ve been enjoying this week.

💰 Bargain Bin

• The Odin 3 Portal is now available for pre-order, with shipping expected in early November. Pricing starts at $399 with the Base model coming with 12GB of RAM. Snapdragon 8 Elite equivalent chip, 7" 1080p OLED 120Hz, 9000mAh battery. I should have a review unit in the next couple weeks! Affiliate / Non-Affiliate

• Some of the microSD card deals from last week are still live, here’s a quick recap:

  • Lexar has a modest $5 discount on their 64GB microSD card three-pack, bringing the total down to $45. I’ve been using a lot more 64GB cards recently for my handhelds (when previously 128GB was my standard); reducing my game libraries has been a satisfying and liberating experience, since I now spend more time playing than browsing. Affiliate / Non-Affiliate

  • Samsung’s 256GB P9 microSD Express card is 25% off, coming in at $60 (instead of its $80 retail). This is that newer generation of fast card that works in the Switch 2 and the Xbox Ally X20. The price here is decent — standard 256GB (non-Express) cards from reputable brands are usually about $60-$65 right now anyway, despite being slower. This Samsung P9 card is also backwards compatible with non-microSD Express readers, but at a slower UHS-I speed. Affiliate / Non-Affiliate

  • The 512GB Samsung P9 microSD Express is also on sale for $99, that's a 33% discount over its $150 retail price. Affiliate / Non-Affiliate

  • Lexar’s 64GB dual USB flash drive is currently $20, just a couple dollars discounted from its retail price. These are handy to have around if you plan on flashing a custom OS like Bazzite or even official SteamOS onto an X86 handheld, and the USB A/C swivel means you don’t have to hunt down an adapter at the same time. I also have one to store a modest ROM collection so that I can easily transfer files over to my handhelds with smaller libraries. Affiliate / Non-Affiliate

  • On the SSD front, Samsung’s 2TB 990 Series NVMe drive is at its lowest price this year, currently down to $330 ($200 off retail). Affiliate / Non-Affiliate

• Humble’s 15th anniversary celebration includes a sci-fi collection of eight Steam games, including Bungie’s Marathon reboot, the full remastered Crysis trilogy, both Ghostrunner games, the RoboCop: Rogue City Collection, and Xenonauts 2. Pricing is tiered, with three games for $10, six for $15, and all eight for $25, and the bundle supports charity: water (to be clear, that is the name of the charity). Most of the lineup runs on Steam Deck, though Marathon is unsupported on the handheld. The offer runs through November 11, 2026. Affiliate / Non-Affiliate

• Green Man Gaming is running their annual Halloween sale, with a whole tab dedicated to Steam Deck-verified games. I’ve listed some of the best deals below, check out the full sale here: Affiliate / Non-Affiliate

  • DOOM (2016) - $3 (down from $20)

  • Marvel’s Midnight Suns Legendary Edition - $18 (down from $100)

  • Monster Hunter Rise + Sunbreak - $8 (down from $60)

  • No Man’s Sky - $24 (down from $60)

  • Resident Evil 4 Gold Edition - $13 (down from $50)

  • The Evil Within 2 - $7 (down from $40)

  • The Outlast Trials - $12 (down from $40)

  • Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands - $5 (down from $30)

  • Wreckfest - $8 (down from $30)

⏪ Previously on Retro Game Corps

The $25 Handheld Everyone was Talking About

To prove my thesis, let’s revisit a handheld that seems decidedly un-magical; until one learns that it was $25, ran off a user-replaceable battery, and moved so many units it ended up with its own community of modders.

🎬 Behind The Scenes

As the weather starts to (finally) cool in Hawaii, that usually means the tangerines start to come into season. We’ve actually got three trees in our yard, but only one of them (the tree that gets the most sun) is truly prolific. After filling this bucket early in the week, we filled the same bucket again just a few days later…from this tree alone! The tangerines themselves are full of seeds so they are not that fun to eat on their own, but each bucket makes about 1.5 gallons of juice which we then distribute to our extended family.

The other two trees are still working on their fruits, but those will likely be done around New Year’s Day. Our biggest challenge is harvesting the tangerines before our neighborhood feral parakeet population decides to turn them into dinner. These parakeets aren’t native to Hawaii, they are escaped (or released) pets who have grown into full-fledged flocks around the islands, and have become increasingly invasive over the past few years. And sadly, they have been tearing up local fruit trees (like ours)! Our solution is to harvest our fruits a little before they are ripe, and then let them ripen for a couple days before juicing.

See you next week,
Russ