Upgrade Your Old Games to HD with the Hyperkin Retron5!

In this episode, we unbox and test out a revision of an item that actually got me back into retro gaming, the Retron5 Hyperbeach Edition from Hyperkin.

In 2015, I started getting interested in retro gaming again. My significant other had an NES that I occasionally played on our flat screen, however, it looked absolutely terrible. Upon doing some research I found the original Retron 5, capable of playing multiple systems and with an HDMI output. I ordered it and played the daylights out of it, and it really was my gateway back into retro gaming. I broke it a few years ago, dropping it and breaking the power port, but since then Hyperkin has revised the Retron5.

The Hyperbeach addition features a super loud color scheme, their most updated firmware, and in addition to the wireless controller also includes a wired Scout Super NES style controller. Including the wired Scout controller addresses an issue many, including myself, had with the original Retron5. The standard wireless controller was terrible, but it was necessary to navigate some of the menus. Hopefully, this makes it possible where we don't have to use it anymore.

Hyperkin named it the Retron5 due to the five cartridge slots, however, it can play many more than five systems. Out of the box, you can play Game Boy, Game Boy Color, Gameboy Advance, NES, Famicom, Super Nintendo, Super Famicom, Genesis, and Mega Drive games. Oh, and it's compatible with both NTSC and PAL systems. Through an adapter, you can also play Game Gear, Master System, and Sega Card games.

Unboxing the Retron 5, it includes the system itself, the two controllers, a USB cable to charge the included controller, an AC adapter, HDMI cable, and your instruction manual. The power cable is a proprietary design using a barrel-type connector. I'd like to see them update the platform to integrate either USBC or micro USB at the least.

There is an SD card slot on the back of the unit which suits a number of purposes. You can save your games to it, but you can also install some pretty interesting patches. One of my favorites is a language translation patch that translates Japanese games into English for you. This is pretty awesome.

The Retron5 runs a version of Android, and to actually play the game it dumps the ROM from the cartridge into local memory. It will also store your game saves locally on the machine as well. As such, you can also add other features such as scan lines, scaling, and much more.

One of the first things I noticed about the Retron 5 Hyperbeach Edition was the fact it simply loads games faster than the one that I had in 2015. The load time for Game Boy Advance games used to be terrible, but now it's really snappy. That was legitimately one of my biggest criticisms in the past.

As you can see in the video, I threw everything that I could think of at the Retron5 to trip it up, and nothing did. There are only two exceptions of things that would not run, my Famicom Disk System and the Game Boy Advanced movies. The FDS makes sense because of the way the Retron 5 dumps the game into local memory, but I have to admit I was a bit surprised that it wouldn't play the movies. I took the cartridges out and put them in my GBA SP and it worked just fine so it wasn't the movie.

Why it RoX:
- It plays so many systems
- Great value
- Included wired Scout controller is exceptional
- Works with original NES, Super NES, and Sega Genesis controllers
- SD card allows firmware upgrades, translation patches, and more
- Built-in filters and scalers
- The output quality is amazing

What could be improved:
- Wireless controller is still janky
- Cartridge pins are still way too tight
- Proprietary power supply
- Can't have it delivered to my home from Amazon
- Hyperbeach scheme is love it or leave it
- Only 720p
- Master System Controllers don't work

Should you buy one?
Make no bones about it, the Retron 5 is the reason this channel exists, and as such I will always have a fondness for this machine. I expected the HyperBeach addition to be a cosmetic change with an extra controller, but it seems like Hyperkin has added to the performance through things like faster load times of the cartridges. I am floored that it worked with the Master Drive, the fact that it played my PAL version of Yoshi's Island perfectly, and the overall performance was terrific. If someone were looking to get a retro video game system that played all of these in one and didn't want to go with original hardware, the Retron5 is still an amazing piece of hardware and hard to beat. After my experience again with the Retron 5, it makes the Retron SQs performance a little bit more disappointing. I don't understand why they couldn't just take what the Retron 5 does for Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games and just put it in that. Regardless, this is still a fun machine and I'm glad to have a working version back in the collection.

#Hyperkin #Retro5 #VideoGames #Nintendo #Sega #GameBoy #Emulator