Blaze's latest cartridge-running machine, the Evercade Nexus, officially launches today. It's a retro handheld that's been years in the making, building on the company's formula that made the OG portable, the Super Pocket, and even arcade cabinets like the Evercade Alpha, which absolutely won't fit in your pocket. That might sound like a gadget that brings nothing new to the table, but actually, it could become a precedent for keeping physical gaming alive.
Those of you who want to cut to the retro console chase can grab the Evercade Nexus for $199.99 at Amazon. My one-liner as someone who's spent hours with the handheld so far is that it's a fantastic offline solution for playing well over 700 games, and the fact that it comes with both Banjo-Kazooie and Banjo-Tooie is a selling point in its own right.
If I know my readers, though, you'll want to know exactly what the deal with the Evercade Nexus is and whether it holds up against the many Linux and Android alternatives out there. It might surprise you to hear that the latter is no - it doesn't - but that's because the latter is a trick question that distracts from the fact that this is a fully fledged console platform that runs its own library of physical cartridges, including native ports, and has zero reliance on the internet in the big 2026, and that's worth supporting.
I could easily split the players who are most likely to vibe with the Evercade Nexus into three camps. The first is simply those of you who love old games but don't actually own any original copies. Let's just say you're looking for a rundown on how to play N64 games today on something like a Retroid Pocket 5; you're going to, at the very least, need to back up your own games and turn them into ROMs that emulators can use, and let's be real, not many of you will do that.
That's where Blaze's handheld ecosystem comes into play, as rather than risking ending up sailing the seas of video game piracy, you'll be able to buy a whole library of Evercade cartridges for the Nexus and legally own the games within forever. No, publishers won't be able to do a Sony and come take them away from you due to weird licensing agreements you didn't sign up to when parting with your cash, and while you'd traditionally have to buy second-hand classics to achieve that, these brand-new carts make the process simpler.
The second camp that will be drawn to the Nexus, or in fact the Evercade family as a whole, is collectors. Each release comes with a numbered clamshell case containing a full-color manual, meaning you'll be able to slowly build a collection that isn't just codes in a box or a bunch of tat linked to a certain open-world sandbox crime caper. I know not everyone cares for things cluttering their house, so you'll really need to be a shelf filler to see the appeal in this one, but I feel like more players than ever can vibe with owning things that are real and not just data hanging out on a hard drive or in the cloud.
Of course, there are also those of you who, for the moment, just want a neat way to revisit Banjo-Kazooie, and that's absolutely valid. Is the Evercade Nexus the absolute best handheld to dive back into the collectathon on? From a performance standpoint, absolutely, as it's good to go at 60fps, 840 x 512 without any mods or tweaks. Plus, this is a ground-up duo of ports specifically for the handheld, so you'll be able to play using the Nexus' shiny new dual thumbstick setup and embrace modern controls.
I should note that it's my job as a hardware tester and tinkerer to be objective with my reviews, so there are some sore points with the Nexus to consider. The first ties back to its price tag, as while it comes in at $200, it skips some features you'd normally get at that price range, like an AMOLED screen and hall-effect thumbsticks for keeping drift at bay. Its core custom operating system could be doing with a touch-up too, since it's currently missing basics like a sleep function, but Blaze says a patch will resolve that soon.
Here's the thing, though: other handheld makers aren't trying to build an entire modern physical ecosystem from scratch. Sure, I might be salty about the fact that the Nexus also lacks HDMI output, or the fact that it doesn't dive too deep into detailed CRT scanlines or try to include boons like save states. However, the latest handheld is still a milestone in the platform's evolution, venturing boldly into 3D gaming and providing a fully licensed way to play classics that don't have the caveat of subscriptions or downloads attached.
I am well aware that for many of you proper retro enthusiasts with existing collections, the better option for $200 is an Android or Linux portable that can run your library. But the Evercade Nexus gets a lot right while holding onto the conquest of ensuring physical gaming is here to stay, and if you really care about resisting the wider industry's push for an all-digital future, you can indeed put your money where your mouth is while also running around as a bear with a bird in his backpack.
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