Recently I’ve spent a lot of time with something I didn’t initially expect to love so much. Retro gaming handhelds are all the rage currently and the one I had my eye on for a while was Anbernic’s RG35XXSP, which is a riff on the original clamshell design of the Gameboy Advance SP. Personally, despite growing up with the Gameboy Color first, the GBA SP’s design is my favorite handheld design of all time. Small, sleek, comfortable to hold, and fits perfectly in basically any pocket. I was sceptical over whether Anbernic could pull it off with a sort of replica model.

I ordered it from their website, expecting it to take over a month to arrive. Life went on and I went to a convention the next city over. I kind of started obsessing over checking its tracking each day, curious how long it’s really take to arrive. (Much sooner than I could have expected.) We got back home from the convention, and there it was on my doorstep. It only took a week, even though the initial shipping dates estimated 2-4 weeks.

I spent the majority of the next couple weeks with the device not even really playing games yet, just setting it up. I wanted the visuals of the game library to be as fun to scroll through as it was to actually launch a title. I changed file titles to be more simple, downloaded box art, organized everything I could want.

Then I started actually getting into the games themselves and putting the console to work. The thing that really stopped me in my tracks; the thing that really clicked. The buttons.

They felt perfect. They felt so nostalgic and perfect. Everything about the way they pressed and clicked and sounded was exactly how I remembered it. Anbernic nailed the feeling of playing a GBA SP and I couldn’t be happier about it.

So with this near-perfect replica of one of my favorite consoles in hand, I started playing games. Of course, one of the first choices being a Pokémon title; specifically Pokémon Emerald. One of my co-workers mentioned that these consoles could essentially connect link cables over Wi-Fi, so you know I had to give that a try. The possibilities really open up to play multiplayer games with friends I hadn’t really had the chance to previously. Trading Pokémon is just the start. Next thing you know I could be playing Mario Party Advance with friends, or finally be able to properly play the original Zelda: Four Swords game (which I only ever got to play because of Grezzo’s incredible DSi port adding a single player mode.) Suddenly, aspects of my childhood games were open to me.

Then I started playing the Spyro GBA games, Season of Ice and Season of Flame. I didn’t grow up with a PlayStation, so these GBA titles were my introduction to Spyro as a character until I eventually got Enter the Dragonfly on the GameCube years later. But that didn’t all matter to me back then, because these games were very much still Spyro, and still feel great to this day. The way companies would take big console platformers and adapt them for handhelds in the 90s and early 2000s was nothing short of incredible. You could really feel that this was still a Spyro experience, even if it had to be simplified for the new model it was being thrown into. Replaying these games hit my nostalgic groove.

And the licensed games. Don’t even get me started on the run n’ gun Lilo and Stitch game (which I’m writing a full review about), or the X-Men 2 movie game. Shrek: Beg For Mercy, a game which I sunk so much time into as a kid, I vividly remember running time trials for the castle dungeon stage.

The big one for me right now though, was a complete accident. I was scrolling through my game list and by complete accident I launched a game that I hadn’t actually intended on playing that day. Sure, I had downloaded it with the full intention of playing eventually, but I was going to let it sit for a while. But with a thumb twitch, I launched something I’d never had the opportunity to play previously. Something completely fresh for me. Golden Sun.

I’d heard so many good things about this game, and I’d been around every single time Isaac was up for debate for a new Super Smash Bros. fighter. I’m a big fan of JRPGs and I play plenty of them, but Golden Sun had always slipped past my radar. But now it was open, and I was looking at that logo. Hearing that music. And I thought, why the hell not?

That weekend I easily sunk 15 hours into that game. A game which, like I said, I had only opened by complete accident. But now I was charmed by it, and enveloped in a new world I’d never seen. With new characters and stories to tell. I felt that childhood wonder again. I’m feeling that love for video games again. I think I lucked out with this console.

This little thing I kind of bought on a whim, hoping for a little nostalgia, but I managed to find something entirely new as well. 

I don’t feel pressured to buy new AAA releases at these ridiculous prices. I don’t feel pressured to grab a new Switch 2 and have the most current modern things. I managed to find something fun where I can still have new worlds to explore and still blabber on and on to my friends about a fun JRPG I found. I can play the old and feel like it’s new, and that’s really exciting to me.

I guess what I mean to say with all of this is that, in the current gaming space where nearly every AAA release is some big slop campaign live service bullshit, it’s comforting to know that there’s so many options. Affordable options with expansive libraries that I can modify any time I like. Comfortable options that can bring me warmth and nostalgia. Fresh options that might not be new, but are so creative and passionate and alive. You don’t have to play the big new thing if you can’t reasonably afford it, or if it’s not exciting to you. Playing retro and playing indie is huge for me, and I’m so happy to have these options.

Between my Anbernic GBA and my Steam Deck, gaming is pretty set for me for a long time to come. And that’s pretty awesome.