The time has come in which console exclusives are starting to become phased out. You have Microsoft games going to the Switch and PlayStation games porting to PC. The end is nigh and soon this category will pretty much disappear. Over the years the handheld market vanished and usually towards the end of a console cycle this category is rather anemic, but it seems now systems need to be combined into just brand platforms. This category combines PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.
Halo Infinite was a huge surprise that it turned out good. It feels like the original Halo Trilogy which is a good thing. The open world concept they can take or leave, but it at least works well and finding all the extra stuff is fun. The multiplayer is in its infancy still, but it’s solid for what’s here and is probably the best FPS multiplayer of the year. Why it took nearly 10 years for a good Halo to emerge is silly, but 343 seems to have gotten the hint with the extra year in the oven paying off.
There were quite a few great Switch exclusives this year with even a few third-party ones popping up. Nintendo has had 5 consecutive years of greatness on the Switch with fantastic exclusives year after year. It doesn’t seem like Nintendo is slowing down either with 2022 having some great exclusives as well and probably some surprises.
Metroid Dread is probably one of the most anticipated games of all time or at least in the last decade. While we got a remake of Metroid II on 3DS a few years back, we haven’t received a true original 2D Metroid game since the GBA days. What’s here is fantastic, and despite a little critisim for the E.M.M.I. enemies the game plays and feels just like a Metroid should. The game looks great and the classic gameplay and well designed map that allows faster navigation the more you play just feels awesome.
Well, I guess someone had to do it right? There isn’t a single Retropie setup for Raspberry Pis on the internet that I could find. After setting up my Picade I spent three weeks tweaking, adjusting, fiddling, troubleshooting, and overall just learning the ins and outs of Retropie and Retroarch. It’s a fantastic and powerful emulator software but needs to be fiddled with so much that most casual users will give up. You finally have a Pi and an enclosure or some sort of cabinet for it and no idea on how to make it look nice or even get games to work.
Getting Retropie Up and Running
Let’s start with something simple and that’s just getting the thing up and running. You will need to burn an image to an SD card to get started and I highly recommend just using a Pi 4 as this guide will cover that Pi, but older ones are fine too.
Choose the version of Retropie that matches the Pi you’re using and then select your storage and click write. That’s it! You now have the basic Retropie install ready to go. Slot it into your Pi and start it up.
When you startup Retropie you will need to set your controls. If you have a cabinet built around the Pi set your controls as you want and hold down any button you want to skip. If you’re using a controller I suggest picking the main controller and sticking with that one as Retroarch will map EVERY emulator to these controls.
After this, you will need to have the correct keyboard layout for your country. To do this go into RetroPie>Raspi-Config.
For the US layouts change the keyboard to “Generic 105 key” layout and the rest their default options when prompted.
Setup Wifi and SSH
The best and fastest way to get ROMs and files onto your Pi is to set up the Wifi and SSH into it. We can’t do anything without these two things set up first. You can also alternatively use an ethernet cable, which is recommended, but if you have an arcade enclosure or are far away from your router then this may not be an option. Once you have set up your control go into Retropie>Wifi. I highly recommend getting a wireless USB keyboard for this stuff as the “DOS” menus of Retropie are easier to navigate with a keyboard. I use this one as I can leave the dongle inside my Picade and the keyboard has very long battery life. It also has a great layout and nice buttons. You also won’t be typing more than a few buttons prompts or short commands so you don’t need anything full size for typing novels. Rii Mini Wireless Keyboard
Once you’re in you can scan for an SSID and type in your password. And yes, I looked it up, there’s no way to see the characters in your password which is super annoying if you have a complicated password. You should see SSIDs, this one is blank for privacy reasons. Once you’re connected write down your IP address as you will need it next.
Setting up SSH on your Windows 10 PC (I’m not sure how to do it for Mac) is fairly easy. I highly recommend using WinSCP as it’s just easier and more reliable and has Windows built-in FTP stuff. Once you have it installed you need to enter your IP address from the previous screen and the username and password is always pi and raspberry by default. You can change these if you want, but…who wants to hack into your Pi? Yeah, no one.
You should now see a screen like this. Always remember that in the <root> menu that <home> is your main folder if you get lost. Inside go to RetroPie and the <roms> and <bios> folders are what you’re going to use the most.
You also need to enable hidden files by going to Options>Preferences>Panels>show hidden files
Update RetroPie and Firmware
You should upgrade your firmware if you haven’t already. If you installed a Picade you have probably already done this step, but you need to step down into a command line by pressing F4 on your keyboard and type in:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
you can then type
reboot
At this point, I recommend updating Retropie by going into the Retropie>Retropie Setup in EmulationStation. Then select Update RetroPie Script and once that’s done you can select Update.
Now we’re ready to add BIOS files and ROMs
Getting ROMs Working
Before we make Retropie look fancy we want to get games working first. I can’t link where to download them, but for Arcade MAME ROMs you can go to archive.org and get romsets. Now, I need to take some time and explain MAME and how it works as it’s very confusing and most people have trouble getting MAME up and running.
MAME is not like other video game consoles in which you can download any ROM and stick it in the folder and it plays. MAME requires the correct romset version/year for the MAME emulator you’re using. For Retropie you will mostly use mame2003plus, mame2010, and FinalBurnNeo. You must only use the romset that matches the emulator version. This is such a hard thing to find online as there are a million answers. If you go to archive.org and search for “mame2003plus romset” you should find an entire archive of them. This is also important because some ROMs only work with certain emulators and you need to have the right romset. You can’t just download an entire 120GB file and drag them all in your ROMs folder and hope they work. Now the confusing part is getting distracted by the three main emulators. Don’t worry about this. I will link a Google spreadsheet of every MAME game (or most of them) that works and for what emulator to use them with. I highly recommend searching inside the document under each emulator tab at the bottom for the game you want. Search within mame2003plus first as you want this to be your default core. Any other games needing specific emulator changes can be changed individually.
This is also mainly for a Pi3b+, so anything that says it lags will most likely run on a Pi 4 just fine. Remember, there are some popular games that just do not run on a Pi 4 and that includes Killer Instinct and some Cave 1K games. Modern fighters like Tekken 3-6will not run. This also includes certain Sega games that use the Naomi or Atomiswave boards for Dead or Alive and Crazy Taxi for example. The Pi 4 just isn’t powerful enough for these so don’t even bother.
There are also some games that require CHD files which are hard disk images that are needed to run alongside the ROM itself. You will probably not find any games that require these as most are too advanced to run on a Pi 4 anyways, so you can mostly ignore this.
For games like Metal Slug, you need the neogeo.zip BIOS file in the ROMs and BIOS folder. For games like Demon Front, you need the pgm.zip BIOS in both folders as well. I can’t link BIOS files, but Google search “neogeo.zip for mame” and something will come up.
For other consoles, I highly recommend reading the official Retropie help docs and under each emulator, it will tell you if a BIOS is needed, what format each emulator can read files in, and other settings. I also recommend compressing your CD images into CHD files as most disc-based emulators can read these and it saves space. The official docs have links to CHDMan and how to use it. There are places to download already made CHD files for systems like PlayStation. r/roms on Reddit is a good place to start.
Whenever you SSH ROMs over to your Pi you need to restart EmulationStation which is your GUI for Retropie. You can press Start>Quit>Restart ES and your ROMs should appear under the correct consoles if you put them into the correct folders.
Scraping
This is a weird term that most people don’t know, but it means downloading all the images and metadata you need for each game to make your Pi experience look presentable. A blank screen with game names just isn’t very appealing. You also want a nice ES theme to complement these scrapes, but we’ll get into that later. Don’t ever use the built-in scraper inside ES as it’s crap. You want video snapshots, wheels, and even marquees, but it’s a bit complicated and you will need your trusty keyboard for this one.
We are going to press F4 on the keyboard and type in the following:
sudo ~/RetroPie-Setup/retropie_setup.sh
Quick tip. If you press the up arrow in the command line screen the Pi remembers all the commands you type in. This is a quick shortcut when needing to get the scraping section faster or any other command you’ve used.
Navigate to Manage Packages>Manage optional packages>scroll down to the bottom and install the skyscraper package.
For this scraper to work correctly you will need to go to screenscaper.fr and create an account. You then need to enter the credentials in the skyscraper .ini file using WinSCP. Optionally you can edit the .ini file on your Pi by going into “Advanced options” in the skyscraper menu and editing the config file there. Pressing Ctrl+X will allow you to save the changes.
Navigate to the following location in WinSCP
/home/USER/.skyscraper/config.ini
Then enter the following at the bottom
[screenscraper] userCreds="USER:PASSWORD"
Replacing USER:PASSWORD with your credentials.
Once this is done, navigate back to the skyscraper menu. Under option 5 “generate options” make sure ROM Names is Source Name, Remove Bracket info is enabled and the last option is disabled. Make sure “Download videos” is enabled.
Under option 3 “Cache options” make sure screenshots, cover, wheels, scrape only missing are enabled. The rest should be disabled.
Once this is done you need to go under option 1 “Gather resources” and press space to select the systems you want. After this is done let the scraper do its thing. Depending on how many ROMs you have this could take a while.
After this is down you need to generate the lists! They won’t show up in ES otherwise. Go down to option 4 “generate game lists” and select the systems you just scraped and continue.
You’re done scraping! After this backup, until you see the reboot option.
Customization EmulationStation
Themes
This is an important one and probably one of the most important visual changes you can make to make your Pi look unique. I suggest looking at a list of the official ES themes here or a video preview of them all here. Navigate to the ES Themes under the Retropie menu and select “View or update theme gallery” and then “Update theme gallery”.
Once you have the theme you want installed press the select button on your controller and go to UI Settings>Theme Set. It should change instantly. This is when you should check your scrapes. If you have a theme that plays videos you should see them playing when you highlight them. Some videos may not play and you may need to change to the OMX Player by going into the settings again and “Other Settings” and turning it on. If this still doesn’t work some videos may need to be re-encoded. Don’t bother doing this until you have all the games you want on your Pi and are happy as every time you scrape you will need to replace/re-encode all of the videos again.
Splash Videos
Splash videos are videos that play while Retropie is booting up. You will want to disable startup text and the length of the video will depend on how many games you have installed. Videos can range from around 12 seconds to a minute. These videos cover up anything on the screen so it looks cleaner when starting up.
To disable on-screen text that you see during the start-up phase you can do so by dropping down into the command prompt with F4
sudo nano /boot/config.txt
go to the very end and add this line
disable_splash=1
These videos are usually in .mp4 format and can be ripped from YouTube videos and dropped into
Here’s a link to an entire playlist of professionally made splash screen videos
Properly Encoding Troublesome Videos
If you have scraped videos for your theme and some aren’t playing at all or have no sound or video then you might need to re-encode them. SSH into your Pi and navigate to
There should be video folders within each system folder. Download and install Handbrake. Under preferences change the output file name format to just “{source}” as you want the file names to stay the same. You don’t want to go renaming possibly dozens, or even hundreds, of videos by hand. You can also batch convert these files, but make sure they convert into .mp4 files. Once this is done you can just overwrite the files in each system folder.
The title is very intriguing, unlike most game titles. Another game title based on a crime, Grand Theft Auto, is the single biggest video game franchise in history, so how does a white-collar crime-based game compare? Well, there are no data sheets or graphing in this game, but this is a 2D isometric Zelda clone where you are trying to stop a corrupt onion mayor from pushing his greed onto the vegetable people.
The game starts out with a short opening of you, Turnip Boy, who hasn’t paid the property tax on his greenhouse and owes a lot of money. He is wanted for tax evasion and must work off the debt by helping the mayor collect four items for an unknown reason. These four items make up the entirety of the game, as well as four small dungeons. There is a small world to explore with collectible hats that can be obtained by helping veggies around the area. Each dungeon contains a final boss and an item the mayor needs.
Wandering around the village is easy enough and memorable, thanks to the landmarks and great level of design. There are signposts that guide you to the general areas, and the mayor will tell you what area you need to be in. There are plenty of NPCs to talk to that provide fairly funny dialog. Nothing that will make you cry, but some funny tidbits and real-world references from the last 5 years. You start the game with nothing and eventually acquire a sword and a watering can. The can is used more than the sword, but mostly for puzzle solving. You can make green lilies grow, and this activates bombs, melons, and various other items. You also get a portal pot that plants portals (a callback to Portal with the orange and blue colors) and an upgraded shovel sword (maybe a nod to Shovel Knight?). There are a few passive things you acquire, like a hazmat suit, boots to kick blocks, and a few others. These were all recovered relatively quickly. Each dungeon takes maybe 30 minutes to complete, and that includes getting to the dungeon itself. Boss fights are the hardest thing in the game, and that’s not saying much. The combat is really easy and similar to older Zelda games, but there aren’t as many enemy types, and their movements don’t vary much. There’s very little challenge in this game.
Bosses usually require you to use the last acquired item to beat it, just like in Zelda games, and then you get a heart and move on. Once you give the mayor his item, he sends you on your next quest. Inside these dungeons, you can help other NPCs and acquire hats or smaller passive items like keys to get further inside. I never really got lost anywhere, and I thought exploring the game was rather fun. Sadly, due to the combat being so easy and the game being so short, it takes about 2-3 hours to run, even if you do side quests. It’s no more than a short afternoon gaming affair. There’s nothing quite memorable about this game other than the title itself and the art style, which is beautiful and well done. It’s a mix of 16-bit visuals and modern cartoon art. The music is fantastic as well, but there’s just not enough of all of this. Turnip Boy’s dungeons are fun and well laid out, but they’re very short, and I feel there’s so much more potential here, but it’s all cut short right when you feel the game is getting deeper.
There is a free DLC update that adds a rogue-lite train dungeon with a final boss, but if you aren’t fond of the combat, you won’t care here. Unless you really want to spend several hours swinging your sword at stiff baddies, then the final game will be enough. There are a few more objectives to complete and more hats to collect, but the main game isn’t long enough to make you love this game enough to want to spend more time in its world. What’s here is a ton of fun, and it’s a visual and comical treat, but it feels more like a sample of what a longer game could be. The puzzles are solid, the gameplay mechanics are great, the combat is simple but works, and there’s tons of humor here. It’s a fun time and worth a purchase, but don’t expect anything groundbreaking.
The Game & Watch series is Nintendo’s first foray into video games and handhelds like the GameBoy Micro, and even the DS drew inspiration from it. It’s also not going to attract the attention of anyone under 25 who isn’t just curious or truly into retro gaming. The original Mario Bros. release was underwhelming, as it didn’t have much value for your money. They could have easily added the entire NES Mario library at no extra cost but chose not to. It seems Nintendo listened this time, as the entire Zelda NES library is included here in a nice package with extras.
The unboxing experience is quite nice here for such a small, proprietary device. The handheld comes out in a display box (more on that later), some of the usual safety pamphlet stuff Nintendo does, and a code to redeem 300 platinum coins on Nintendo.com (which are used to redeem things that actually matter, like physical items). The device itself is inside a foam sleeve, and that’s your lot. The charger is hidden away inside a “compartment” of the display box, and this is a tiny three-inch USB-C cable, but any cable will work. This one just so happens to be Nintendo-branded, so collectors might want to hold on to it and not lose it. When you power on the device, you will be greeted with a splash screen of Link himself plopped right into the “main” screen, which is the clock. If you press the Pause/Set button, you can enter the system’s settings, which allow you to change the sound and brightness and turn off sleep mode (if plugged in).
Once you have your time set, you can go into the game selection screen and choose between the original Zelda, The Adventure of Link, and Link’s Awakening. You can also play the Game & Watch series Vermin, which stars Link himself. You can then use the timer app as well. So, these sound great on their own, right? Well, this entire device is chock-full of Easter eggs and features that you will probably miss or never know about without playing around with or reading about them. First, the timer and clock screens both have playable games built into them. The clock features several screens, and Link will take 12 hours to complete the “game,” or you can control him yourself. There are hidden Easter eggs here, such as fairies appearing when the clock says 2:22 and other things happening when all digits are the same number. The game’s lighting will affect the time of day as well, which is really neat. There are also several language versions for each game, and you can experience their regional differences. This is more of a historical curiosity thing for most, but it’s nice that these were all included.
The Timer app has three backgrounds you can cycle through and a time attack mode. Every game has cheats built-in that will give you full hearts if you hold A for five seconds while starting a new game. The clock screen can switch from the 8-bit ticking sound (which is really freaking annoying, by the way) to the game’s music and sound effects. There is also an auto-save feature that resumes right where you left off. You can easily switch between all three games and never lose your spot. There’s also a manual-save mode by holding A+B+Select+Start. Vermin has an extra-hard C mode if you press A for five seconds, and the clock screen will also cycle through 11 different backgrounds before going into sleep mode.
If that isn’t enough to keep you busy for a while (seriously, this would be a great stocking stuffer as it’s great value for your money), you get a nice little cardboard display that has a fold-out stand in the back, which is made from the tray the device sits in. This isn’t going to hold up over time, so I suggest you get a third-party stand or something that someone else made for the long term. Collectors will probably not want to use this either. And, as a nice little bonus, the rear tri-force logo lights up when it’s on.
So, that’s your lot. Three fantastic and iconic Zelda titles and the Game & Watch title tie it all in with fun interactive apps. The device itself is what you would expect from Nintendo. It’s lightweight but has sturdy plastic, and the screen is gorgeous with sharp colors and a vivid picture. The speaker is great too, and it spits out 8-bit tunes clearly and doesn’t sound tinny or anything like that. While these games are emulated ROMs, they don’t have any issues and work just fine. The D-pad feels amazing, and while the two face buttons are a bit rubbery, they’re fine for this device. It just looks gorgeous and is a fantastic piece to display as well. Overall, this is how these need to be done in the future and is well worth the $50.
I personally love short indie games, especially if they can deliver something pretty crazy in at least one department. A great story, fun gameplay, or crazy visuals are what Happy Game delivers here. There is no story, no dialogue, and no pretense. You just play as a ball-shaped kid who goes to sleep and has nightmares about three of his favorite toys. Each toy needs to be rescued and falls under one of three chapters.
The first nightmare is about the boy’s ball. He gets beat up, and it’s taken from him, and you use just your mouse to drag the boy around and manipulate objects. Pushing, pulling, twisting, rotating, and anything in between is the name of the game here and the only gameplay element. Every single screen is something completely new, and it’s either gory, crazy, scary, weird, or creepy. I never got bored looking at this game, and the few puzzles that got thrown in were quite fun as well. The game is never complicated or requires using your cerebral jelly, but manipulating certain objects in a certain way is how you solve the few puzzles. The second toy is a stuffed rabbit, and the third is a dog.
I can’t describe the game or give a clear vision without you playing it. It’s just so much fun to look at. The game’s strongest point is the visuals here, as in every step of the way something new is presented. From pulling apart toys to revealing creepy things inside, murdering various oddly shaped creatures, helping other creatures, pulling eyeballs out of skulls, and the list goes on. There’s so much here in just one hour that I have to applaud the developers for giving us so much content and diversity in such a short period of time.
The game is also full of a lot of atmosphere. Most of the game is in black and white to emphasize blood and gore. There’s really creepy music; the boy grunts a lot and cries and shouts but never speaks. The facial expressions on every object are very detailed. This is a moving piece of horror art, or even a hand-drawn haunted house ride, if you will. Very rarely did I not know what to do or couldn’t figure something out. Maybe two or three scenes are a little obscure, but eventually, I did move on.
Sadly, there’s zero replay value other than just experiencing the visuals again. It’s incredibly short-lasting, maybe an hour, but it’s a very entertaining hour. It’s hard for me to score these types of games above an eight, even if they are amazing, because there’s an issue with the length, and there’s almost no gameplay and usually zero stories or character development. These types of short indie games are mostly visual treats or just a quick fast-food type experience that’s rarely as endearing as games like Journey or Monument Valley but are just fun enough to warrant your time. Happy Game is by far one of the most visually striking games of the year, and sadly, it’s going to get looked past due to these negatives that most indie games get bashed for. I’m not personally bashing Happy Game for its shortcomings, as it’s not trying to provide you with some of everything and presenting a mediocre package. Its strong points are worth noting and playing for, and that’s just fine.
I love games like these. Short little indie games that do something AAA games don’t care to notice or even glance at. Unpacking is what you get on the tin. There’s no story here at all, no characters; you just get put into various years from the late ’90s to 2018, unpacking a person’s belongings in various homes. It seems dull on paper, but it’s actually quite satisfying, and the enjoyment solely comes from you wanting to decorate everything correctly and not just put things where they go.
Bedrooms consist of era-appropriate computers, lots of clothing, knick-knacks, plants, posters, frames, shoes, workout equipment—you name it. Bathrooms will have bathroom items, and kitchens will have things like food and utensils. There are also living rooms that have video game consoles, knick-knacks, frames, pillows, blankets, plants, and other items. There are a lot of items in this game, but here lies my biggest complaint about this game. It’s incredibly repetitive. After the second “album” that I completed, I pretty much saw every single item. Sure, unpacking boxes and putting things away satisfies an OCD in most people, but out of the six levels, how many dozens of underwear, bras, and clothes do I need to hang? Things only got interesting later on when new objects or large items did pop up. Laundry baskets, trash cans, umbrella stands, and dish racks were far and few between, and it wasn’t until the last level where you get every room and pretty much unpack every item in the game.
As you start off in 1997, you may get a bit of a nostalgia hit; there are a lot of 8-bit-style items laying around from the era. CD players, cartridge game systems, old stereos, crazy teen angst posters, and anything else you can think of from your childhood. The game is set in an isometric perspective, so you can zoom around, and that’s about it. There are numerous boxes in various rooms, and when you click on a box, it opens, and inside you just see packing paper. Clicking the box has an item pop out, and most are regular everyday household items. Most of the boxes are to be unpacked in that room, with the occasional item being misplaced. You can rotate items and even activate some items for achievements, and the snapping feature works rather well. A book can lay flat, or if you push it up against a shelf, it will stand up and stack.
There are a few challenges when it comes to space. Some rooms will be very minimal with a lot of items, and you have to be clever and organized to get everything to fit. Once you unpack every box, items that are in the wrong place will flash red, and most of this made sense, but some didn’t. Why do I have to put a backpack on a shelf when on the bed makes sense? There were a few cases in which I couldn’t make out what the items were at all, which had me clicking and placing them on everything until I found the right spot. I also wish I could unpack the furniture and literally unpack an entirely empty home. Maybe some outdoor areas would have been nice, like backyards, sheds, garages, or other settings like offices, which would have added variety.
What’s here is still rather charming, with some nice music that seems to stop for long periods of time, which I hated, and there’s a seemingly pointless photo mode in which you can add borders and stickers. This feature just felt like filler content to me, but this is a very unique game, and there’s nothing else out there like it. The game is so short that you can finish it in less than two hours, so
I have a fascination with arcade hardware, but it’s just too big and expensive to own a real one. While I have covered the Arcade 1Up Mortal Kombat cabinet, it just seems that you really need to put a personal touch on something and build it yourself or heavily mod an already-made one to make it feel proper. The Pimoroni Picade was the next best thing, as I already had a Raspberry Pi 4 laying around from a retropie project I tried and gave up on. This was a long journey of fiddling, learning, and searching for answers, as the software side was way more complicated and troublesome than the hardware build. I’ll cover the hardware part in this review, but I have something coming up that will cover a full guide on setting up a Retropie for Dummies. Not just for the Picade, but in general, as there isn’t one online that exists.
The Unboxing
I have to say that the unboxing experience here was a real treat. The box itself looks nice, is in full-color print, and has tons of information on it. This looks like something you would see on a store shelf. It has enough information on the outside and tells you quite a bit about what you’re going to get into. When you pull the lid off, the documentation is all on top, including an envelope bursting with dozens of stickers, an info sheet on Pico-8, and a redeemable code. This isn’t really my thing, but it’s a program that allows you to share and create 8-bit-style games. You also get a full-size poster! The cabinet itself is sectioned into four boxes and well organized too. The instructions are actually online and are actually well done. I was worried as they were mostly just texting with a few low-res photos and no video. A video does exist on YouTube, but there are no close-ups, and it only gives you a rough idea of where things go. I honestly found the descriptions perfectly fine. They were very detailed and described almost everything very well. I was a little confused at first with the bags of screws, but the instructions even tell you to grab “the big bag of screws” or “use the plastic screws and nuts,” which really helped. Once you unpack each box and separate them, you get an idea of what you have, and it seems overwhelming at first. There are easily three dozen or more parts here. Once I got to building the cabinet, I was able to learn the ins and outs of the cabinet, and I felt if anything went wrong, I knew all the shortcuts for how to get to each part the easiest.
You will need a Philips screwdriver, a power adapter for your Pi, preferably the Canakit one (which I have), or an official Pi adapter. I also recommend a pair of needle-nose pliers and a small flathead screwdriver, as the crimps for the buttons can sometimes need adjusting.
The Build
Building the cabinet was actually quite fun and fairly straightforward. It took me around 2 hours to build the entire thing. I do personally recommend buying real Sanwa buttons, as the ones that come with the Picade are garbage. After about an hour of using them, they start binding up badly and squeaking. The joystick is perfectly fine and feels like a higher-quality Sanwa clone, but these buttons are just unacceptable. Two buttons would stick and stay down after a couple of presses, so playing games was pretty much a no-go until my Sanwa buttons came in. I spent that week messing with the Retropie software and tweaking. Standard 30mm Sanwa buttons fit right in perfectly with no issues, and they feel a million times better. I decided to leave the standard side buttons since you don’t use them very often, but these also started binding up, sticking, and squeaking about two weeks in, so I will have to replace those as well. With the Picade already costing $250 and adding $40 for buttons, they are really racking up the price point.
I also found that the standard artwork was fairly boring and will use the template to create my own. Despite those minor issues, the Plexi is sturdy and solid, and the wood panels are powder coated nicely and feel really solid. My only build quality issue is that the marquee is a little loose and could use some slightly smaller cutouts to hold the Plexi panels in place. The rubber feet hold up nicely and keep the Picade from sliding around, and I love that everything is easily accessible. You can access the buttons by taking off the two mounting screws for the control panel, and the back is held on with a single tab and a rubber band. The screen OSD controls have their own cut-out and mount, and the SD card is accessible via a slot at the bottom. This is not just sturdy and fun to build, but also easily serviceable for further customization without the need to dismantle the entire thing.
The Initial Play Test
First, I highly recommend using a wireless keyboard with the Picade, as you don’t want wires hanging out. I’ve used this keyboard for over a year, and it has a great layout and buttons, and the battery lasts forever. Rii Mini Wireless Keyboard
There really aren’t any instructions on how to use Retropie or customize it. There are some software steps you must take to get the screen and Pi Hat working for the control panel, but I ran into an issue right away. While the fix to get the HDMI settings to stick correctly worked and I was setting up WiFi, the update for the Pi Hat didn’t work, and I had to hunt down a fix for nearly an hour, as without this, the controls just wouldn’t work. The link that you are given to put into the command line is correct, but the firmware for your Pi might be outdated. I had to do the following commands to get the link to register and work:.
apt-get update
apt-get upgrade
Then I typed in the instructions to install the Picade drivers, and it worked. They should really add these instructions to the official documentation, as some people may never figure this out and get incredibly frustrated.
I do want to mention that the LCD screen is gorgeous. It’s a true 4:3 aspect ratio with a 1024×768 resolution, which is perfect for a Pi to render at. I didn’t really need to mess with the OSD settings, as they seemed perfect out of the box. The giant 10″ display with the small bezel just looks so good, and it runs at 60 Hz!
After this, there are instructions on how to get Retropie going by “burning” an image to your SD card. I highly recommend 64GB or higher. Once you pop in your SD card and start up Retropie, there are no further instructions. You just spent $250 and 2-3 hours of your time to set up the controls, and that’s it. There’s no guide on what to do after this, and you must spend hours researching, fiddling, and figuring out what to do. Arcade games are the main reason people will buy this, and this has been one of the most complicated, delicate, and fiddly things I have ever done project-wise. I will post a full guide on setting up Retropie with pretty much every issue you could possibly run into and how to easily customize it without needing to Google every single thing like I had to do. It took me a total of three weeks to fully customize and set up my Picade the way I wanted.
I’m not a huge Banjo fan. I never was as a kid either. I felt the game was really tedious and easy. The only interesting parts of the game were the platforming and collecting everything, and even that got dull after a while. I personally feel it’s a very overrated game and is one of the most nostalgia-blind games in existence. I tried out Grunty’s Revenge for GBA, and it’s exactly what I expected. An oversimplified version of an already pretty simple game.
The story is mostly nonsense, but Gruntilda has created a robot version of herself, and you need to stop her. The end. Yeah, Banjo was never much for the story. I do have to say that the yapping voice samples are incredibly annoying and repeat themselves over and over again. It’s one of the most annoying voices I’ve heard in any game. It’s just irritating noise; they don’t even sound like voices. Never mind that, though, your goal is to run around collecting jiggies, musical notes, honeycombs, and various other odds and ends to acquire abilities to gain access to new areas. The levels in this game are fairly small but well designed. I have to say the level design overall here is great, and I never got lost thanks to memorable landmarks, which are key to a game without a map. You talk to a mole fellow who will grant you a new ability once you have enough notes. I never ran into an issue with this, as exploring alone will give you more than enough notes. Abilities range from smacking enemies with your pack to rolling. Once you acquire Kazooie, you can get the ability to fire eggs, batteries, a jump glide, and an aerial attack.
I do like how the abilities keep coming in quick succession. It was satisfying to get back to the hub world and gain access to new abilities such as ladder climbing and diving. Thankfully, just exploring on its own saw me collecting and completing 100% of each level with ease. There are boss fights, and these are painfully easy and never change. The boss has an electric field around it, and you just run around dodging attacks. Once the field is down, you can attack. The life counter will go down with each attack, and you are rewarded afterward. Enemy encounters are pretty much the same, and enemies constantly respawn. Some enemies require more than one hit, but I found it annoying that they would get in the way of a platforming segment after I’d killed them and only get knocked down to come back around and have to kill them again. It was hard to judge depth with some platforms, and it would lead to cheap falls.
I do have to say that while the game looks decent, the pseudo-3D look makes everything look quite bland. While it’s by no means ugly, I never cared for the art style of Banjo. Everything is just green and yellow in this game; it gets old after a while. There are only four large levels, and the game can be finished in less than four hours. Thankfully, you can save anywhere, and dying doesn’t even reset the area. You just start off at the next closest spot or platform, so I didn’t see the point in having a life bar if there were no consequences to dying. The only thing that kept me going was the completionist in me wanting to reach 100% at every level, and acquiring the next ability was fun.
Overall, Grunty’s Revenge is a decent isometric platformer, but other games did it better, such as Spyro. The visuals are kind of muddy and blurry and a bit hard to see when it comes to platforming, but the levels are designed well. The story is nonsense, and
I’m really glad people are bringing back games that look and feel like original PlayStation games. There was something about the games on that system that just had a great feeling, and the limited tech was perfect for horror games. It’s why that genre is so coveted on that platform and why every PS1 survival horror game garners high prices. Sure, they’re flawed, a little clunky, and some might say ugly, but if you grew up with that system, you would know what I’m talking about. The hardware limitations helped add to the mystery and creep factor.
Fatum Betula is one such game made like it was on the system. There’s no story, no characters, no goals; you just wander around the limited areas and try to get all 10 “endings.” There is a singular goal, if you can call it that. You might put liquid in the water where a tree grows inside a church of some kind. Each liquid gives you a different ending. The way you acquire these liquids is very abstract and confusing, and honestly, you need to play this game with a guide or you will never understand what to do. It’s almost a piece of art rather than a game.
When I first started out, I climbed the stairs inside the main “hub” and couldn’t figure out what to do. The controls are purposefully annoying, with just a menu, save, and action button. The inventory menu looks like a PS1 game, and I love it. The graphics are pixelated, blocky, and do the shifty thing that PS1 games did when moving the camera. It turns out that you’re supposed to stand still and stare into the void by the tree, and a weird creature will come up and drop off the vials you need for the liquids. Then I had no idea what to do without a guide. There’s one section where you are walking over a lake and must sleep inside an ancient Japanese hut. When you wake up, the entire game is glitched out on purpose, with just a red Japanese symbol texture as the skybox, and it’s very disorienting. You then have to get a knife and cut a rope, and the character will give you the liquid you need to give to the tree.
Once you do drop the liquid off the tree, you get a weird ending of stock footage that’s pixelated and low-res with some sort of message. It’s bizarre but also so cool to see. This is where the guide is needed because, technically, you can beat the game in about 10 minutes. It took me an hour with a guide to get all 10 endings, and for a sale price of a couple of dollars, this was a weird and interesting ride that I quite enjoyed. Part of what the guides have you do is get a certain amount of items and then save them because you need to reload to do something different. There’s a cat you can kill, feed, poison, etc., and each time that gives you a new liquid. It’s better to save before doing each action.
Fatum has eerie sound effects, creepy music, and random noises, and it’s just a super weird experience. If you have ever played LSD Simulator on PS1, you may have an idea of what this is about. Don’t go into this expecting a linear adventure, a horror story, or anything like that. It plops you in, and you must figure out what to do by thinking very abstractly and outside normal video game conventions. The final ending would most likely be impossible to figure out as you must put immortality liquid in the autumn river, then enter the church, exit, and at random the moon will appear behind the church, but you must reload and try again if that didn’t work. Things like this would make 99% of curious players just delete the game and get a refund, but use a guide and just enjoy the visual treat.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !