The Analogue Pocket Has Me Falling In Love With the Game Boy All Over Again
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This handheld revitalizes the small-but-ambitious titles of the Game Boy era, giving gaming history a brighter future.
Warioland 4 is really weird. Not only is getting hit by enemies encouraged, it’s actually sometimes the only way to proceed through the level. Bad guys will poke Wario and cause him to swell up and float away like a balloon. Or smush him down so thinly that he can squeeze under anything. And for some reason, there’s an old man with bug-eye glasses whose bald head you’re constantly using as a platform to leap-frog over obstacles. Poor little dude.
These are things you probably never noticed about your Game Boy games. Because, chances are, you haven’t touched them since you were 12 years old. I know I haven’t. Retro handheld games are having something of a moment right now; RetroDodo.com, hardware modders, Youtubers like WULFF DEN, and podcasts like Into the Aether have been breathing new life into ancient portable consoles. But I hadn't yet felt the need to stop playing Red Dead Online and dig up my old cartridges. That is, until my Analogue Pocket showed up in the mail.
What’s the Analogue Pocket? It’s like if the Game Boy was made in 2021. A ginormous, smartphone-quality LCD screen. Super-powered FPGA specs. Sleek, premium casing that would make Jony Ive proud. And the ability to play every handheld game ever. Well, not exactly. But close enough.
A lot of writers have already sung the Pocket’s praises. Here at Esquire, we awarded it Console of the Year. So I’m not going to waste any more space in the ethereal web cloud rambling about how smooth the Pocket is on my palms, how fun and clicky the triggers
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