ModRetro Chromatic evaluation: an arms seller’s Game Boy is among the many finest ever made

If Lockheed Martin made a Game Boy, would you purchase one?

In the Nineteen Nineties, I used to be among the many youngsters who thought army plane had been devastatingly cool. By then, Tom Cruise and Top Gun had lengthy established the F-14 Tomcat and a pair of flier shades as a fantasy for younger males; I personally most well-liked the Lockheed F-117A, the high-tech angular “Stealth Fighter” that might invisibly sneak previous enemy radar, and was keen on the legendary Lockheed SR-71 that flew so quick it may outrun missiles.

At the time, I in all probability would have snapped up a jet-black Lockheed Game Boy with out a second thought. But I’m sufficiently old now to comprehend that cool aerodynamics are simply the tip of a deadlier geopolitical iceberg. Lockheed makes weapons, and I don’t have a say in who will get to purchase them or who they’re used in opposition to. I don’t have a say in whether or not that tech ought to exist in any respect.

I’ve been fascinated with Lockheed Martin as I evaluation a a lot less complicated gadget: the ModRetro Chromatic. The Chromatic is a high-end remake of Nintendo’s Game Boy, and it may be the perfect model of a Game Boy ever made. But it’s linked to an organization very similar to Lockheed: Anduril, the protection contractor that makes weaponized drones, networked surveillance techniques, and different army tech.

Both Anduril and ModRetro are based by Palmer Luckey, the creator of the Oculus Rift VR headset. Luckey is now an virtually unbelievable character, a religious anime and online game lover who reportedly shops his huge assortment of video games in a decommissioned US nuclear missile silo — one among a number of silos he says he owns. 

He performs with a lavish assortment of army {hardware} together with helicopters and a Mark V Special Operations Craft utilized by Navy SEALs. He as soon as made the quilt of Time Magazine as a floating barefoot “visionary” with an Oculus headset atop his head, although today he’s extra more likely to make headlines propagandizing for his model of the protection business. He was the face of VR earlier than Facebook kicked him out. (Luckey was an early Trump booster and took flak for funding a single Hillary Clinton-trolling billboard; Mark Zuckerberg denied he was fired for his political beliefs on the time; some Meta execs have since apologized for his ouster.) 

Many tech firms are concerned with army tasks in some form or kind. Google and Amazon have a contract with Israel for a “Project Nimbus” that Google knew may have enabled human rights violations in opposition to Palestinians, and Google has fired many employees for protesting that deal. Microsoft is at the moment working in the direction of outfitting over 100,000 troopers with a militarized model of its HoloLens headset. Meta is now letting protection contractors use its Llama AI mannequin. I feel it’s truthful to say few of us boycott these firms and even take into consideration this stuff once we use their merchandise.

But the place every of those firms can plausibly say “It’s simply enterprise” as they defend their cloud server contracts or when their CEOs kiss the ring, and it’s very arduous to flee Big Tech’s orbit, this can be a enjoyable however pointless product from a person with a selected standpoint on weapons, battle, and politics. Luckey has twice hosted fundraisers for Donald Trump (in 2020 and 2024) at his personal home. He publicly expresses the fervent (and self-serving) perception that tech firms ought to get in mattress with the army.

For Luckey, it’s not simply enterprise, it’s private. And we’ve heard loud and clear that it’s private for a lot of of our readers, too. I’ve been testing the ModRetro Chromatic for over a month, and it’s very good. I imagine it’s the perfect, most luxurious strategy to play Game Boy and Game Boy Color video games. But if the purpose is to revive and protect our childhood nostalgia, the Luckey connection throws a wrench within the works. What you’re about to learn is an actual evaluation of a superb product, one I genuinely loved utilizing — however one which left me feeling considerably tortured within the course of.

For Luckey, the Game Boy itself is private. It’s how he received his begin. Before Anduril, earlier than Facebook, earlier than Oculus, Palmer Luckey was a teen who modded Nintendo Game Boys. “ModRetro” was the title of the very very first thing he based: a web based discussion board for gaming {hardware} modders like himself.

So as you’d anticipate, his firm has some robust concepts about what a contemporary Game Boy ought to appear like.

Where the $220 Analogue Pocket seeks to replace the Game Boy expertise for the current day — with help for different handheld cartridges, ROMs, save states, a TV dock, and so forth — the Chromatic stays squarely rooted within the handheld’s previous. There are few fashionable facilities right here. It’s designed to really feel like a classic Game Boy, solely now with the tough edges sanded off.

Nintendo’s easy-to-scratch casings, display screen lenses, and buttons? They’re manufactured from metallic, sapphire, and PBT plastic now. Those hard-to-see screens? You now get a customized IPS show on the identical dimension, decision, and pixel construction as the unique Game Boy and Game Boy Color, one so vibrant you may play in direct daylight like we did again within the day. It does come, nevertheless, with a brand-new copy of Tetris that optionally provides T-Spins, on the spot drops, and the power to carry items for later, modernizing the traditional recreation that famously got here bundled with the unique.

At its coronary heart, the Chromatic is an try and faithfully cross the unique 1989 Game Boy with the 1998 Game Boy Color. There’s no SD card reader, no user-accessible working system, no capacity so as to add or play ROMs: once you slide the top-mounted energy swap, it immediately boots your Game Boy or Game Boy Color cartridge utilizing a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) chip that emulates an precise Game Boy’s processors. Like with the Analogue Pocket, the upshot is extra responsive, quirk-free gameplay than software program emulators permit. 

I’m a mother or father, and “I don’t have time for this shit” comes with the territory, so I instantly assumed I’d miss “save states,” the function that lets virtually each online game emulator and retro handheld pause and resume your recreation at actually any second.

Then I fired up Pokémon Pinball on an Analogue Pocket, and located I used to be mistaken. I used to be on a pokémon-catching roll like by no means earlier than. I caught Charmander, my daughter’s favourite pokémon, and for the primary time in Pinball, I developed it right into a Charmeleon, then a Charizard, all with out dropping my ball. The stakes had been excessive, so I reflexively tapped the Save State shortcut so I may retry if I failed.

Immediately, the stress was off — however I felt a piece of my pleasure vanish together with it. I caught these Pokemon truthful and sq. with out loading the save, however I’d cheated myself of a pure victory, even when I didn’t wind up dishonest the sport. When I caught that very same recreation again into the Chromatic, a handheld with out save states, the joy got here again. This is the way in which the sport is supposed to be performed, and people stakes are there by design. That’s the expertise ModRetro needs you to have, and the one one you’ll get. Ditching that fashionable amenity is a alternative, and it isn’t for everybody.

It’s simply one among some ways the Chromatic feels extra genuine. Even although it’s a mash-up of two totally different Game Boy fashions, it immediately feels acquainted in methods the Analogue doesn’t, from the sliding energy swap and quantity dial (the Analogue has you maintain down intently spaced digital buttons and takes longer to start out a recreation) to the button structure and really feel.

The Chromatic is principally the scale of a Game Boy Color, with the identical bulging battery compartment curve offering a rounded perch to your fingers to relaxation. But it’s clearly been designed for many who respect the unique 1989 mannequin too. It’s received the unique’s iconic slanted, cake-sprinkle Start and Select buttons, its shiny domed A and B buttons, its bigger D-pad, its extra protected cartridge slot, and the rounded lower-right corners of its flat-faced chassis and canopy glass. All of them deliver me again to the hand-held that made me a gamer. 

I ponder if they convey Luckey again to his early days, too. Because whereas ModRetro seems to have made a remarkably repairable handheld and is at the moment open-sourcing its CAD recordsdata and firmware, this bespoke system shouldn’t be precisely what ModRetro was initially created to make. 

Luckey minimize his tooth turning current Game Boys and GameCubes into arguably higher, extra moveable variations of themselves by reusing bits of outdated and new electronics. “It’s a number of enjoyable as a result of it’s about taking outdated expertise after which slicing out the outdated components, changing them with new components and making it into one thing that was by no means attainable earlier than,” he informed Voices of VR in 2014. The ModRetro Chromatic is all customized, although, proper all the way down to its in-house display screen. 

Still, ModRetro’s authentic strategy to improvement has been on show all through Luckey’s skilled historical past. Luckey’s key perception with the Oculus Rift was that low-cost smartphone elements may lastly make VR accessible, a perception he shared with researchers on the lab the place he labored, too. Repurposed business provide chains are additionally Anduril’s pitch to turn out to be the world’s best weapons producer, “in order that the identical processes used to construct fiberglass bathtubs can simply as simply be reconfigured to construct missile airframes,” as Tablet Magazine described it in August.

With that strategy, Anduril has quickly constructed out an arsenal in simply seven years, together with a number of drones that may kill — one is a “loitering munition” that remotely dive-bombs a goal, one other successfully a recoverable ground-to-air missile. 

When I have a look at the Chromatic and its distinguished “MODRETRO” emblem proper above the display screen, typically I simply see a superb Game Boy. But generally I see the newest high-tech product from a person who makes high-tech missiles. 

At this level, you may be questioning: simply how glorious is that this {hardware} to justify all this soul-searching? Let’s begin with construct high quality:

• It’s manufactured from metallic, not plastic, which may appear slightly chilly at first contact, however I can’t overstate how strong and premium this gadget feels. The construct is unimaginable.
• I even deliberately dropped a Chromatic twice onto concrete, from 4.5 toes, with out destroying it. More on that in a sec.
• The battery latch is a bodily spring-loaded lever, which takes slightly getting used to, however has such a satisfying snap.
• Unlike each official Game Boy, there’s no entrance speaker grille. But in contrast to all my official Game Boys, the bottom-facing speaker is loud, crisp, and clear.
• The Start/Select buttons are now not pliable mushy rubber, however somewhat PBT plastic with the identical agency clicky presses as A and B.
• The quantity dial is massive and straightforward to search out and use by really feel alone.
• The battery compartment is almost the identical thickness as the unique Game Boy’s, giving it a beefier grip than any Game Boy since (although not fairly sufficient for my associates with massive fingers). 
• The D-pad, a little bit of a sore spot for some Analogue Pocket lovers as a result of it will probably generally permit unintended inputs, feels tight and responsive – virtually too agency, mine wore in after many hours of play.
• When I examined it in opposition to an Analogue Pocket on the identical brightness, utilizing rechargeable AAs, the Chromatic lasted three whole hours longer. (You can watch a sped-up timelapse in my Today I’m Toying With video.)
• I merely plug the Chromatic into USB if I’m ever working low on cost — at underneath three watts of energy draw, any outdated port will do! I powered it from my cellphone. 
• I may even hotswap AA batteries that manner. Plug it in, swap AAs, unplug, all with out dropping my recreation. 

The Chromatic’s pixel-perfect display screen isn’t strictly obligatory: I typically had simply pretty much as good a time on the Analogue Pocket’s larger, greater decision show if I enabled the precise filters and coloration palettes, although I did respect that the Chromatic received the Game Boy Color really feel good out of the field. The Chromatic even permits you to summon green-tinted authentic Game Boy palettes by holding down buttons at boot.

There are additionally some methods it’s not fully trustworthy to the unique Game Boys, simply FYI:

• There’s now not a visual hole between the display screen crystal and the LCD, and the display screen is now not a clean inexperienced or gray when powered off. It’s a laminated black mirror like fashionable telephones.
• While it’s largely the scale of a Game Boy Color, it’s practically as heavy as a totally loaded authentic Game Boy at 10 ounces (285g). Compare to 7.5oz / 212g for the Game Boy Color.
• There’s an additional button beneath the quantity dial that permits you to change brightness, activate body mixing and USB coloration correction and… that’s about it for now.
• You get a Game Boy Color-sized Link Cable connector, however with the additional notch of the Game Boy Advance’s connector for probably extra compatibility with different Game Boy devices.
• You get two lanyard/appeal holes, one on both sides of the system, in contrast to the Color’s one on the left.
• The battery compartment takes three AAs, not 4 or two.
• There’s now not a purple energy LED staring you within the face, however somewhat a multicolor LED on the underside that solely activates for boot, low battery, and charging.
• The Game Boy Color infrared port’s been barely moved to accommodate the ability swap.

And there have been a number of minor disappointments too. Mostly, I want it labored slightly higher in quiet bedrooms and loud airplanes. The buttons and even the D-pad click on louder than any of my outdated Game Boys, but the three.5mm headphone jack quantity is the quietest of the pack. I may barely hear its chiptunes over the din of the aircraft, and I couldn’t compensate with my noise-canceling Bose QC25 because the Chromatic doesn’t have a four-pole headset jack.

ModRetro additionally advertises the Chromatic as “indestructible,” and if that appears like advertising and marketing bluster, you’re a minimum of half proper. I dropped the Chromatic twice onto concrete, from 4.5 toes, and it got here away with solely minor dents, and I used to be impressed. But ModRetro additionally has an image of the factor getting run over by a automotive. When I ran it over with my automotive, the display screen shattered. The body is now badly bent. 

I used to be additionally a tad dissatisfied to search out the Chromatic’s USB-C port isn’t as potent as promised. While the corporate marketed USB-C video output and even informed me you possibly can cost rechargeable AAs utilizing the do-it-all port, it seems the Chromatic can solely current itself as a webcam for desktop-style video recording, and NiMH AA charging didn’t make the minimize. ModRetro CEO Torin Herndon, who was an engineer at Anduril from 2017 to 2021, tells me the corporate is starting manufacturing on an non-compulsory rechargeable lithium-ion battery pack, however received’t speak value, capability, or runtime simply but.

That mentioned, I truly discover I choose AAs. At 50 % brightness — far greater than I wanted on the aircraft — I noticed over eight hours from a set of Ikea-branded Panasonic Eneloop rechargeables, or nearer to seven hours from Amazon Basics alkalines. That identical model of alkalines gave me over 12 hours on the second-lowest brightness setting, the dimmest I’d need to use within the daytime, and slightly below 5 hours at max brightness and max quantity. And once more, you may merely plug the Chromatic right into a USB port if you happen to’re ever working low on cost, then drop in new AAs with out dropping your recreation.

There’s actually no query in my thoughts that this handheld is the perfect retro Game Boy but made, the one which finest captures the bodily feeling I had enjoying Game Boy as a child. I love remasters as a result of they’ll allow you to recapture that childhood pleasure, enjoying with the Lego starship or Final Fantasy recreation you assume you keep in mind as an alternative of the one that truly existed.

But I don’t keep in mind my childhood nostalgia coming with a aspect of attainable guilt and concern about placing cash into the pocket of a weapons contractor. Feels bizarre! 

Even virtually, I ponder who, outdoors of a handful of 1989 handheld lovers like me, would need a handheld that simply performs Game Boy and Game Boy Color carts. Many of the perfect video games are costly and arduous to search out in bodily kind — Metal Gear Solid and the perfect Pokémon titles can simply command $100 every — and it’d be a extra compelling gadget if it may play the arguably higher library of Game Boy Advance titles as effectively. The Analogue Pocket does.

Luckey has mentioned he needs to broaden that authentic Game Boy library. Game builders by no means fairly stopped making homebrew video games for the Game Boy, and ModRetro is among the few now publishing them on precise carts. Every Chromatic comes with a brand new copy of Tetris, and you may already order 10 extra titles, together with a brand new model of Toki Tori and Tales of Monsterland, sequels to Traumatarium and In the Dark, and my private favourite, the grindy JRPG Dragonyhm with some glorious tunes and pixel artwork.

This chiptune particularly, Dragonyhm’s “Gonrad Forest,” captivated me directly:

If you are feeling bizarre about ModRetro, you must know these video games aren’t unique to the Chromatic, both — they performed completely effectively plugged into an Analogue Pocket or a Game Boy Color, and a few even labored on my 1989 authentic. Some could also be accessible to buy as ROMs. If you simply need to strive them, many have playable demos you may strive in an emulator, or perhaps a internet browser, like this:

On a desktop, faucet to focus; press Enter to start out; use Z, B, and arrow keys to play.

It’s not clear to me how severe Luckey is about funding a brand new period of Game Boy. For one factor, the Chromatic is already bought out at his web site, and he says he isn’t making any extra, however will concentrate on releasing new video games whereas it builds “one thing extra sustainable” by way of {hardware} as an alternative. (A gray Chromatic remains to be accessible at Gamecease, for now.)

Second, so far as I can inform, all of ModRetro’s video games past Tetris had been already in improvement; some, like Dragonyhm, had been already headed to cartridge elsewhere. Developing new video games isn’t at the moment an organization purpose: “We are usually searching for video games deep in improvement right now, and attempt to push them throughout the end line into being a full-on bodily good,” Herndon tells me. He says ModRetro largely pays to create cartridges, bins, and manuals, and provides builders a “fairly superior” share of gross sales.

The pre-release carts that ModRetro despatched me additionally had a pair points which might be hopefully getting ironed out: I mysteriously misplaced my whole save in In The Dark 2, and Traumatarium Penitent was lacking a key bugfix the developer made virtually a yr in the past. Toki Tori additionally booted right into a full display screen glitch the primary few occasions I began it up, nevertheless it appears to be working now.

Even when folks love the concept of revisiting the Game Boy and supporting retro recreation improvement, I believe most will see a $200 handheld that makes you individually swap pricy cartridges as a luxurious they’ll’t afford — not when each iPhone and a mountain of Chinese emulator handhelds can play the identical video games, ones they’ll (illicitly) obtain without cost. 

And if you happen to discover the Analogue Pocket isn’t classic sufficient to your tastes, you possibly can at all times do what I simply did and add a contemporary backlit display screen to your real Nintendo Game Boy. It received’t be pixel-perfect, nevertheless it may be adequate for me:

This is among the harder evaluations I’ve ever needed to write, as a result of I’ve no qualms recommending the ModRetro Chromatic on the power of its {hardware}, which justifies its $200 value. It feels extra just like the Game Boy I keep in mind than lots of Nintendo’s precise handhelds after I decide them up in the present day.

But just like the Tesla Cybertruck, it’s additionally very a lot the product of 1 individual particularly, an individual who stands for different issues that may conflict along with your beliefs, and it may wind up being a logo that you just don’t terribly thoughts any of that, even if you happen to truly do.   

Luckey lately informed a Pepperdine University viewers that it’s not a foul factor to have fun the ability of weapons, saying that “societies have at all times wanted a warrior class that’s enthused and enthusiastic about enacting violence on others in pursuit of fine goals,” and that “you want folks like me who’re sick in that manner and who don’t lose any sleep making instruments of violence.” He defined that his firm is known as Anduril after Aragorn’s sword in The Lord of the Rings partly as a result of that sword was “inherently good,” and “wielded solely by the dominion of man in opposition to the hordes of Mordor.”    

Real life accommodates no inherently good drones or inherently good missiles. And two main throughlines of Tolkien’s work are that battle is hideous and that energy inevitably corrupts. The pleasure I discover enjoying with pretend swords within the ModRetro Chromatic is now weirdly intertwined with a common concern: that Anduril’s actual weapons may be misused. I received’t counsel that area of interest $200 Game Boys are literally funding these weapons in any significant manner, however these nonetheless aren’t feelings I affiliate with my childhood Nintendo expertise. 

That means the Chromatic isn’t the final word Game Boy, even when it has the perfect construct high quality and the perfect display screen. There’s nonetheless room for a greater pair of rose-tinted glasses than those Luckey has paid to create. 

Photography by Sean Hollister / The Verge