ModRetro Chromatic review: an arms dealer’s Game Boy is among the best ever made

If Lockheed Martin made a Game Boy, would you bargain one?

In the 1990s, I was among the kids who thought subject craft were devastatingly cool. By then, Tom Cruise and Top Gun had agelong established the F-14 Tomcat and a brace of aviator shades arsenic a phantasy for young men; I personally preferred the Lockheed F-117A, the high-tech angular “Stealth Fighter” that could invisibly sneak past force radar, and was partial to the legendary Lockheed SR-71 that flew truthful accelerated it could outrun missiles.

At the time, I astir apt would person snapped up a jet-black Lockheed Game Boy without a 2nd thought. But I’m aged capable present to recognize that chill aerodynamics are conscionable the extremity of a deadlier geopolitical iceberg. Lockheed makes weapons, and I don’t person a accidental successful who gets to bargain them oregon who they’re utilized against. I don’t person a accidental successful whether that tech should beryllium astatine all.

I’ve been reasoning astir Lockheed Martin arsenic I reappraisal a overmuch simpler gadget: the ModRetro Chromatic. The Chromatic is simply a high-end remake of Nintendo’s Game Boy, and it mightiness beryllium the champion mentation of a Game Boy ever made. But it’s connected to a institution overmuch similar Lockheed: Anduril, the defence contractor that makes weaponized drones, networked surveillance systems, and different subject tech.

Both Anduril and ModRetro are founded by Palmer Luckey, the creator of the Oculus Rift VR headset. Luckey is present an almost unbelievable character, a devout anime and video crippled person who reportedly stores his immense postulation of games successful a decommissioned US atomic rocket silo — 1 of several silos helium says helium owns. 

He plays with a lavish postulation of subject hardware including helicopters and a Mark V Special Operations Craft utilized by Navy SEALs. He erstwhile made the screen of Time Magazine arsenic a floating barefoot “visionary” with an Oculus headset atop his head, though these days he’s much apt to marque headlines propagandizing for his mentation of the defence industry. He was the look of VR earlier Facebook kicked him out. (Luckey was an aboriginal Trump booster and took flak for backing a azygous Hillary Clinton-trolling billboard; Mark Zuckerberg denied helium was fired for his governmental views astatine the time; immoderate Meta execs person since apologized for his ouster.) 

But wherever each of these companies tin plausibly accidental “It’s conscionable business” arsenic they support their unreality server contracts oregon when their CEOs kiss the ring, and it’s very hard to flight Big Tech’s orbit, this is simply a amusive but unnecessary merchandise from a antheral with a circumstantial constituent of presumption connected weapons, war, and politics. Luckey has doubly hosted fundraisers for Donald Trump (in 2020 and 2024) astatine his ain house. He publically expresses the fervent (and self-serving) content that tech companies should get successful furniture with the military.

For Luckey, it’s not conscionable business, it’s personal. And we’ve heard large and wide that it’s idiosyncratic for galore of our readers, too. I’ve been investigating the ModRetro Chromatic for implicit a month, and it’s very good. I judge it’s the best, astir luxurious mode to play Game Boy and Game Boy Color games. But if the extremity is to reconstruct and sphere our puerility nostalgia, the Luckey transportation throws a wrench successful the works. What you’re astir to work is simply a existent reappraisal of an fantabulous product, 1 I genuinely enjoyed utilizing — but 1 that near maine feeling somewhat tortured successful the process.

For Luckey, the Game Boy itself is personal. It’s however helium got his start. Before Anduril, earlier Facebook, earlier Oculus, Palmer Luckey was a teen who modded Nintendo Game Boys. “ModRetro” was the sanction of the precise archetypal happening helium founded: an online forum for gaming hardware modders similar himself.

So arsenic you’d expect, his institution has immoderate beardown ideas astir what a modern Game Boy should look like.

Where the $220 Analogue Pocket seeks to update the Game Boy acquisition for the contiguous time — with enactment for different handheld cartridges, ROMs, prevention states, a TV dock, and truthful connected — the Chromatic stays squarely rooted successful the handheld’s past. There are fewer modern amenities here. It’s designed to feel similar a vintage Game Boy, lone present with the unsmooth edges sanded off.

Nintendo’s easy-to-scratch casings, surface lenses, and buttons? They’re made of metal, sapphire, and PBT integrative now. Those hard-to-see screens? You present get a customized IPS show astatine the aforesaid size, resolution, and pixel operation arsenic the archetypal Game Boy and Game Boy Color, 1 truthful agleam you tin play successful nonstop sunlight similar we did backmost successful the day. It does come, however, with a brand-new transcript of Tetris that optionally adds T-Spins, instant drops, and the quality to clasp pieces for later, modernizing the classical crippled that famously came bundled with the original.

At its heart, the Chromatic is an effort to faithfully transverse the archetypal 1989 Game Boy with the 1998 Game Boy Color. There’s nary SD paper reader, nary user-accessible operating system, nary quality to adhd oregon play ROMs: erstwhile you descent the top-mounted powerfulness switch, it instantly boots your Game Boy oregon Game Boy Color cartridge utilizing a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) spot that emulates an existent Game Boy’s processors. Like with the Analogue Pocket, the upshot is much responsive, quirk-free gameplay than bundle emulators allow. 

I’m a parent, and “I don’t person clip for this shit” comes with the territory, truthful I instantly assumed I would miss “save states,” the diagnostic that lets practically each video crippled emulator and retro handheld intermission and resume your crippled astatine virtually immoderate moment.

Then I fired up Pokémon Pinball on an Analogue Pocket, and recovered I was wrong. I was connected a pokémon-catching rotation similar ne'er before. I caught Charmander, my daughter’s favourite pokémon, and for the archetypal clip successful Pinball, I evolved it into a Charmeleon, past a Charizard, each without losing my ball. The stakes were high, truthful I reflexively tapped the Save State shortcut truthful I could retry if I failed.

Immediately, the unit was disconnected — but I felt a chunk of my excitement vanish on with it. I caught those Pokemon just and quadrate without loading the save, but I’d cheated myself of a axenic victory, adjacent if I didn’t upwind up cheating the game. When I stuck that aforesaid crippled backmost into the Chromatic, a handheld without prevention states, the excitement came back. This is the mode the crippled is meant to beryllium played, and those stakes are determination by design. That’s the acquisition ModRetro wants you to have, and the lone 1 you’ll get. Ditching that modern amenity is simply a choice, and it isn’t for everyone.

It’s conscionable 1 of galore ways the Chromatic feels much authentic. Even though it’s a mash-up of 2 antithetic Game Boy models, it instantly feels acquainted successful ways the Analogue doesn’t, from the sliding powerfulness power and measurement dial (the Analogue has you clasp down intimately spaced integer buttons and takes longer to commencement a game) to the fastener layout and feel.

The Chromatic is fundamentally the size of a Game Boy Color, with the aforesaid bulging artillery compartment curve providing a rounded perch for your fingers to rest. But it’s intelligibly been designed for those who admit the archetypal 1989 exemplary too. It’s got the original’s iconic slanted, cake-sprinkle Start and Select buttons, its glossy domed A and B buttons, its larger D-pad, its much protected cartridge slot, and the rounded lower-right corners of its flat-faced chassis and screen glass. All of them bring maine backmost to the handheld that made maine a gamer. 

Luckey chopped his teeth turning existing Game Boys and GameCubes into arguably better, much portable versions of themselves by reusing bits of aged and caller electronics. “It’s a batch of amusive due to the fact that it’s astir taking aged exertion and past cutting retired the aged parts, replacing them with caller parts and making it into thing that was ne'er imaginable before,” helium told Voices of VR successful 2014. The ModRetro Chromatic is each custom, though, close down to its in-house screen. 

Still, ModRetro’s archetypal attack to improvement has been connected show passim Luckey’s nonrecreational history. Luckey’s cardinal penetration with the Oculus Rift was that low-cost smartphone components could yet marque VR accessible, a content he shared with researchers astatine the laboratory wherever helium worked, too. Repurposed commercialized proviso chains are besides Anduril’s transportation to go the world’s astir businesslike weapons manufacturer, “so that the aforesaid processes utilized to physique fiberglass bathtubs tin conscionable arsenic easy beryllium reconfigured to physique rocket airframes,” as Tablet Magazine described it successful August.

With that approach, Anduril has rapidly built retired an arsenal successful conscionable 7 years, including aggregate drones that tin termination — 1 is simply a “loitering munition” that remotely dive-bombs a target, different efficaciously a recoverable ground-to-air missile. 

When I look astatine the Chromatic and its salient “MODRETRO” logo close supra the screen, often I conscionable spot an fantabulous Game Boy. But sometimes I spot the latest high-tech merchandise from a antheral who makes high-tech missiles. 

At this point, you mightiness beryllium wondering: conscionable however fantabulous is this hardware to warrant each this soul-searching? Let’s commencement with physique quality:

The Chromatic’s pixel-perfect surface isn’t strictly necessary: I mostly had conscionable arsenic bully a clip connected the Analogue Pocket’s bigger, higher solution show if I enabled the close filters and colour palettes, though I did admit that the Chromatic got the Game Boy Color consciousness conscionable close retired of the box. The Chromatic adjacent lets you summon green-tinted archetypal Game Boy palettes by holding down buttons astatine boot.

There are besides immoderate ways it’s not wholly faithful to the archetypal Game Boys, conscionable FYI:

And determination were a fewer insignificant disappointments too. Mostly, I privation it worked a small amended successful quiescent bedrooms and large airplanes. The buttons and adjacent the D-pad click louder than immoderate of my aged Game Boys, yet the 3.5mm headphone jack measurement is the quietest of the pack. I could hardly perceive its chiptunes implicit the din of the plane, and I couldn’t compensate with my noise-canceling Bose QC25 since the Chromatic doesn’t person a four-pole headset jack.

ModRetro besides advertises the Chromatic arsenic “indestructible,” and if that sounds similar selling bluster, you’re astatine slightest fractional right. I dropped the Chromatic doubly onto concrete, from 4.5 feet, and it came distant with lone insignificant dents, and I was impressed. But ModRetro besides has a representation of the thing getting tally implicit by a car. When I ran it implicit with my car, the surface shattered. The framework is present severely bent. 

I was besides a tad disappointed to find the Chromatic’s USB-C larboard isn’t arsenic potent arsenic promised. While the institution advertised USB-C video output and even told maine you could complaint rechargeable AAs utilizing the do-it-all port, it turns retired the Chromatic tin lone contiguous itself arsenic a webcam for desktop-style video recording, and NiMH AA charging didn’t marque the cut. ModRetro CEO Torin Herndon, who was an technologist astatine Anduril from 2017 to 2021, tells maine the institution is opening accumulation connected an optional rechargeable lithium-ion artillery pack, but won’t speech price, capacity, oregon runtime conscionable yet.

That said, I really find I similar AAs. At 50 percent brightness — acold higher than I needed connected the level — I saw implicit 8 hours from a acceptable of Ikea-branded Panasonic Eneloop rechargeables, oregon person to 7 hours from Amazon Basics alkalines. That aforesaid marque of alkalines gave maine implicit 12 hours astatine the second-lowest brightness setting, the dimmest I’d privation to usage successful the daytime, and conscionable nether 5 hours astatine max brightness and max volume. And again, you tin simply plug the Chromatic into a USB larboard if you’re ever moving debased connected charge, past driblet successful caller AAs without losing your game.

There’s truly nary question successful my caput that this handheld is the champion retro Game Boy yet made, the 1 that champion captures the carnal feeling I had playing Game Boy arsenic a kid. I love remasters due to the fact that they tin fto you recapture that puerility joy, playing with the Lego starship or Final Fantasy game you deliberation you retrieve alternatively of the 1 that really existed.

But I don’t retrieve my puerility nostalgia coming with a broadside of imaginable guilt and fearfulness astir putting wealth into the pouch of a weapons contractor. Feels weird! 

Even practically, I wonderment who, extracurricular of a fistful of 1989 handheld lovers similar me, would privation a handheld that just plays Game Boy and Game Boy Color carts. Many of the champion games are costly and hard to find successful carnal signifier — Metal Gear Solid and the champion Pokémon titles tin easy bid $100 each — and it’d beryllium a much compelling gadget if it could play the arguably amended room of Game Boy Advance titles arsenic well. The Analogue Pocket does.

Luckey has said helium wants to grow that archetypal Game Boy library. Game developers ne'er rather stopped making homebrew games for the Game Boy, and ModRetro is 1 of the fewer present publishing them connected existent carts. Every Chromatic comes with a caller transcript of Tetris, and you tin already bid 10 much titles, including a caller mentation of Toki Tori and Tales of Monsterland, sequels to Traumatarium and In the Dark, and my idiosyncratic favorite, the grindy JRPG Dragonyhm with immoderate fantabulous tunes and pixel art.

This chiptune successful particular, Dragonhym’s “Gonrad Forest,” captivated maine astatine once:

If you consciousness weird astir ModRetro, you should cognize these games aren’t exclusive to the Chromatic, either — they played perfectly good plugged into an Analogue Pocket oregon a Game Boy Color, and immoderate adjacent worked connected my 1989 original. Some whitethorn beryllium disposable to purchase arsenic ROMs. If you conscionable privation to effort them, galore person playable demos you tin effort successful an emulator, oregon adjacent a web browser, similar this:

On a desktop, pat to focus; property Enter to start; usage Z, B, and arrow keys to play.

It’s not wide to maine however superior Luckey is astir backing a caller epoch of Game Boy. For 1 thing, the Chromatic is already sold retired astatine his website, and he says helium isn’t making immoderate more, but volition absorption connected releasing caller games portion it builds “something much sustainable” successful presumption of hardware instead. (A grey Chromatic is inactive disposable astatine GameStop, for now.)

Second, arsenic acold arsenic I tin tell, each of ModRetro’s games beyond Tetris were already successful development; some, similar Dragonyhm, were already headed to cartridge elsewhere. Developing caller games isn’t presently a institution goal: “We are typically looking for games heavy successful improvement astatine this time, and effort to propulsion them crossed the decorativeness enactment into being a full-on carnal good,” Herndon tells me. He says ModRetro mostly pays to make cartridges, boxes, and manuals, and gives developers a “pretty awesome” percent of sales.

The pre-release carts that ModRetro sent maine besides had a mates issues that are hopefully getting ironed out: I mysteriously mislaid my full prevention successful In The Dark 2, and Traumatarium Penitent was missing a cardinal bugfix the developer made astir a twelvemonth ago. Toki Tori besides booted into a afloat surface glitch the archetypal fewer times I started it up, but it seems to beryllium moving now.

Even erstwhile radical emotion the thought of revisiting the Game Boy and supporting retro crippled development, I fishy astir volition spot a $200 handheld that makes you individually swap pricy cartridges arsenic a luxury they can’t spend — not erstwhile each iPhone and a upland of Chinese emulator handhelds tin play the aforesaid games, ones they tin (illicitly) download for free. 

And if you find the Analogue Pocket isn’t vintage capable for your tastes, you could ever bash what I conscionable did and adhd a modern backlit surface to your genuine Nintendo Game Boy. It won’t beryllium pixel-perfect, but it mightiness beryllium bully capable for me:

This is 1 of the much hard reviews I’ve ever had to write, due to the fact that I person nary qualms recommending the ModRetro Chromatic connected the spot of its hardware, which justifies its $200 price. It feels much similar the Game Boy I retrieve than galore of Nintendo’s existent handhelds erstwhile I prime them up today.

But similar the Tesla Cybertruck, it’s besides precise overmuch the merchandise of 1 idiosyncratic successful particular, a idiosyncratic who stands for other things that mightiness clash with your ideals, and it could upwind up being a awesome that you don’t terribly caput immoderate of that, adjacent if you really do.   

Luckey recently told a Pepperdine University assemblage that it’s not a atrocious happening to observe the powerfulness of weapons, saying that “societies person ever needed a warrior people that is enthused and excited astir enacting unit connected others successful pursuit of bully aims,” and that “you request radical similar maine who are sick successful that mode and who don’t suffer immoderate slumber making tools of violence.” He explained that his institution is named Anduril aft Aragorn’s sword successful The Lord of the Rings partially due to the fact that that sword was “inherently good,” and “wielded lone by the kingdom of antheral against the hordes of Mordor.”    

Real beingness contains nary inherently bully drones oregon inherently bully missiles. And 2 large throughlines of Tolkien’s enactment are that warfare is hideous and that powerfulness inevitably corrupts. The joyousness I find playing with fake swords successful the ModRetro Chromatic is present weirdly intertwined with a wide fear: that Anduril’s existent weapons mightiness beryllium misused. I won’t suggest that niche $200 Game Boys are really funding those weapons successful immoderate meaningful way, but these inactive aren’t emotions I subordinate with my puerility Nintendo experience. 

That means the Chromatic isn’t the eventual Game Boy, adjacent if it has the champion physique prime and the champion screen. There’s inactive country for a amended brace of rose-tinted glasses than the ones Luckey has paid to create. 

Photography by Sean Hollister / The Verge