Hyperkin RetroN 5: HD Gaming Console for Game Boy Advance/ Game Boy Color/ Game Boy/ Super NES/ NES/ Super Famicom/ Famicom/ Genesis/ Mega Drive/ Sega Master System (Black)

Story time: I originally bought a Retro-bit 3+ for $90 and I wanted to like it so badly. The RB3+ played NES/SNES/MD, which was all I needed, and it looked so nice with its smooth lines and red/white retro aesthetic. Welp, you get what you pay for... the RB3+ was a huge disappointment. I got the RB3+ to avoid the Hyperkin Retron 5 because reviews of Hyperkin products are such a mixed bag. Unfortunately, the RB3+ turned out to have terrible audio emulation (games will not sound the way you remember them), cheap build quality (the cart dust covers got scratched to all heck as soon as I started sticking carts into them), and game compatibility issues (multiple carts just would not play even after multiple cleanings and endless attempts to re-seat the pins). The Retron 5, by contrast, has been an excellent experience. I've played GB, GBC, GBA, NES, SNES, and MD games on it with no problems whatsoever. Games that I had to re-seat numerous times or just wouldn't launch at all on the RB3+ work on the Retron 5, first try. The console has an efficient and simple front-end/system management menu, which is nice. It isn't earth-shattering stuff, but it has plenty of basic options that allow you to customize your gaming experience to some extent. I like the option to add two types of scanlines: subtle and heavy (and none, of course). You can also use navigation sound effects or turn them off, and lots of other stuff. The only things I don't love are 1) the controller ports are all on the sides instead of on the front, so you have to take that into account if you are short on space, and 2) the overall design is kinda... let's just say it will never hang in the Louvre. But it does what it's supposed to do, so I can't hold that against it. Both of these are minor niggles -- the Retron 5 is good value for the money to gain access to 6 old systems (8 if you count the GG/MS adapter for another $50) and so far has shown to have great emulation quality and a very high compatibility rate as I haven't found any games yet which don't work (full disclosure: my collection isn't very big, so take that for what it's worth). I'm really liking my time with this console. Oh, before I forget: I've seen some people saying they like the pack-in controller. That's cool, people can like what they like. But, dude... it's flaming, hot garbage. I mean, I don't care because I'm using high-quality repro controllers for the systems it can run (ironically, Retro-bit makes some really good controllers for cheap), but let's call the balls and strikes here... the pack-in controller is pure trash. Cheap feel, sharp edges, face buttons feel terrible, shoulder buttons somehow feel worse, and what they heck even IS that weird joystick/nub/thing? Also, the process for wireless connection isn't done the way the manual explains it (I forget what the exact issue was, I just know I had to do some experimentation to get it to connect and it wasn't the way the manual laid it out). The face button labeling is also weird and unlike anything I've ever seen. I keep it perched on the back in its little alcove strictly for the purpose of navigating the menu if I'm too lazy to grab one of my not-crap controllers, unravel the cable, plug it in, etc., but I actively avoid touching that abomination. Again, I don't care because I don't use it and the console is absolutely still worth what you pay for it, but don't let anyone tell you this controller is anything other than what it is... which is terrible. Spend another $15 or so and get some decent SNES or Genesis pads and you'll be much happier. Heck, even the fourth-rate knockoff Playstation 1 pads I got 8 years ago packed in with some bootlegged Singaporean emulator box is better than the Lovecraftian horror Hyperkin tossed in my lap and tried to convince me was a gaming controller. Yick. Anyway, the Retron 5 is awesome... great value for money, especially if you have (or plan to have) a multitude of 8- and 16-bit carts to play. Don't be afraid to take the plunge on this. Highly recommend!

Really, this review is 4.5 stars. This console is a blast to use. I’ve got over 100 Genesis, NES, and SNES games on my shelf, and until now, I relied on emulation. But nothing beats the feeling of popping in a physical cartridge and jumping straight into gameplay. It’s nostalgic, satisfying, and just works. I usually avoid scanlines, but the implementation here is subtle enough that I forget it’s even on. The system includes all the modern quality-of-life features: save states, fast-forward, cheats, and even super easy ROM patching. That last one has me buying Famicom and Super Famicom games on eBay, currently I am patch titles like Legend of Zelda—it’s addictive. Sadly it's only one patch per game. It’s easy to use and genuinely fun, but it’s not without flaws. Reproduction cartridges are hit-or-miss. Most American releases like Moonwalker, Chrono Trigger, and Lufia II work fine. But translated imports like Clock Tower and Live A Live don’t boot—oddly, Back to the Future II and Bahamut Lagoon do. There is custom firmware that may fix all this, but I am just enjoying Deja Vu for the NES right now to care, and yes I added a patch to make it uncensored which I added a screenshot for. At $155, it’s a bit pricey. If you don’t care about save states, ROM patching, or support for Famicom, GBA, GBC, and GB, the Retron 3 HD might be a better value at around $60 less. But for my needs, this system is fantastic. Bonus: it comes with a SNES-style controller, which is a huge win—especially compared to the Retron’s default controller, which is laughably bad. * All screenshot has scanlines turned on.

I've had this or about a month and have been very happy with it. Productivity around the house is at a new low, thanks to the Retron 5. I've been collecting games for these systems since they were new and still have all of my original consoles. They look great on a CRT TV, but not so much on these new-fangled HDTVs. Originally, that was why I purchased one of these; so I could keep my original consoles hooked up to TVs they were designed to be played on and to use this for the living room TV. But I've gotten much more out of it. First of all, the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance games look phenomenal. So much better than through the Gamecube's GB adapter. That alone made my purchase feel worthwhile. Secondly, the cheat codes. I'm not a big fan of cheat code usage, but have to admit it has been a ton of fun sitting down with my 6-yr old son and playing through 2-player co-op games together without any frustrations. It's a great way to kill 30-45 minutes and see areas of a game I've never been able to make it to personally. Thirdly, game patches. So much potential here! I installed a patch that alters the common Tetris NES game (not the Tengen one) to include 2-player co-op. My wife and I have spent hours playing it, and she hasn't played a classic video game with me in ages. There are also tons of fan translations for games that never made it to the States and many of those games are still dirt cheap to import. Quality of the hardware is still questionable and I sincerely hope it's still running a year from now. The pack-in controller isn't as bad as some people say, but I still prefer using the original controllers. I find the shoulder buttons are easily hit on accident, but having the extra buttons for taking screenshots or fast-forwarding un-skippable parts is very handy. There have been a few games that I've had some issues with (graphical glitches, game locking up at certain parts), but they have been very few. I've reached out to Hyperkin on their Facebook page and they gave me a personal response about trying to have the issues fixed in the next firmware release. That really impressed me. Overall, I'm very impressed.

The product on the paper is great, and even with it's slight flaws (on a normal functional unit), it opts to be great. Why am I giving a 1-star rating? Well, simply put, because I received a faulty unit. I simply cannot give more, if it doesn't even fire up. If i receive a working unit later on and it's fun as it should be, I still cannot give full score honestly after the issues, but still higher than this. So, the console arrived today so I unboxed it and plugged the wires in, but it never started up when pressing POWER button. I have all wires plugged in, as well as the controller charging up (which blinks lights, and sometimes sets itself as controller #3) No, this is not the issue of me not knowing that it must be held down for long time. I tried holding POWER button down for two minutes, several times, nothing. Front panel lights and the way they work indicate, however, that something is not right with my unit: the led lights on the front panel blink and turn on rather randomly, and different way every time despite doing the same thing. POWER button is sometimes more, sometimes less bright blue, and always shuts off after holding it for 10 seconds, blinking very quickly afterwards, randomly. The other front panel lights indicating, which cart is inserted in the console, do light up by random. Mostly 4/5 of them are constantly on, and one is shut off randomly, despite if I have GB cart inserted, or if none at all. I get "no signal" from television, and Retron 5 POWER button doesn't turn on and remain blue after 10 seconds, as it normally should when started up. I have tested with two working televisions LG LW450N and Sony Bravia KDL-26P2520, and with original HDMI-cable, as well as one of my own cable which is tested to work with Blu-Ray player. I had a friend over minute ago, who received his unit earlier today. It had some minor problems with those slide-open covers on the top (that protect the cart ports) jamming when opened, but nothing like this (my unit, hadn't this problem, but I'd switch our problems with Retron 5 any day easily). He confirmed that this unit, indeed, does not work as it should (like his). I have now e-mailed Amazon whether it would be possible to opt to wait for a new batch of Retron 5's to receive a working replacement console, as after ordering the unit on January and then receiving faulty unit after long delays, it would feel really stupid just to take a refund, as I know this is rather capable console (if it works).

Because of all of the controversy surrounding this item I felt compelled to write a review for it (something I practically never do due to lazyness). First a little background I preordered this system back in march and only received last week, so yes the complaints about the delays are well deserved. I'm also in no way shape or form an expert in video gaming, but I do own all current gen systems (wii u, xbox one, ps4, vita, 3ds) and I've owned many previous generation systems over the years (Nes, Snes, N64, Gamecube, Wii, GB, GBC, GBA, DS, PS2, PS3, PSP, Genesis, GameGear, Dreamcast, Xbox, X360). My experience interacting with them has given me a fairly good idea as to what I should expect from a console. Secondly the complaints about the hardware (especially build quality) are accurate. The system has a nice "heft" to it, but overall seems cheaply built. The cut out in the back for the controller is unnecessary and makes the system look ugly. The sd card slot is in the back which is a huge annoyance, because of the systems lack of Wifi. Its not a situation where you can plug the card in the back and forget about it, because you will need to remove it from time to time in order to copy update files onto it (another unnecessarily clunky process.) The controller is one of the ugliest I've ever used and makes a horrible "clicking" noise while playing not unlike a mouse. Simply put I would not pay more than $10 the controller. Speaking of the controller one of my biggest fears was input lag. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term; input lag is the delay between when you perform an action on the controller and when said action happens on screen. For example you swear you hit the melee button while playing that shooter and it nothing happened. From my experience input lag seems to depend on the tv. I suffered horribly from it at first while playing a 50" samsung, but after switching a 42" LG and placing the tv in "Game mode" as recommended it was reduced significantly. My Last and the biggest gripe about the hardware are the cartridge slots. Even after reading about others' difficulty with inserting and removing games did not prepare me for what it would be like. My SNES and GBA slots function fine, but my NES slot refused to release the game inserted to it. I had to pull on it to the point where I started to feel the plastic cave, and am now concerned about the overall durability of this console. Finally I want to talk about the software that runs the system. Its fairly basic and the best word I could use in order to describe it is in offensive. I do agree with other owners that the software should allow you to have multiple cartridges inserted. I feel this way mostly because of the nightmare that removing games from certain slots and partially because I'm lazy and don't want to get up. My main complaints though are navigating the software and updating it. In order to update the retron you have to insert an sd card and copy and update request to said sd card. Then you remove the card place it in your computer go to their site upload the request file, so you can download the update file. From there you remove the card and place it back into your system. There simply should of been a more fluid way. Another minor gripe is that I've yet to find a way to remap buttons for menu navigation. Right now the confirm button is the button above the button it is on every other system. So while confirm is A on xbox and X on playstation it would be the button above those, which really throws off my musle memory. Its not all bad; the filters work really well for making the games look their best. Other features like instant saving and transfers function. The cheats did not function, but I have no interest in them so it doesn't matter. In conclusion you maybe wondering why I gave the system 4 stars; when it sounds like my experience has been subpar. The system maybe subpar, but EXPERIENCE IS the reason I gave it 4 stars. As a child of the 80's I grew up playing most of the games this system is able to play. To this day I still feel that the GameBoy Advance is the best system I've owned. This device allows me to play those games again, and on a larger screen. In addition to that the filters allow the games in some cases to look amazing. Aside from a very limited collection of games on Nintendo's eShop, this device is the only way to play most of these games in a somewhat modern way. Does the system have it flaws? YES. Would I reccomend people wait for the next generation? Yes if they demand a more polished product. Would I buy it again? Without hesitation, and that's why I gave it 4 stars. There are very few things that don't give you buyers remorse and the Retron 5 is one.

I got this unit to play some retro games, but didn't want too much clutter of too many systems and cables and the occasional issue like the 72 pin NES connector. Although I've heard about this item having a tight cart fit on the NES slot, I also saw that this particular model should have fixed it. Thankfully, with YouTube reviews, I got all I needed to get started on this thing, was able to easily navigate all the options and set it up the way I wanted. I tried all 4 of the NES games I had and they not only all worked great, but looked bright and clear as well. NOTE: I've had some issues with this unit being able to read early revisions of NES carts that don't carry the Authorized Nintendo stamp, so be careful picking those carts up. The Hyperkin does a quick rip of the game ROM as opposed to playing it directly. This allows for cheats and translation patches to be applied. Apparently, it deletes the ROM after you remove the cartridge, perhaps to circumvent any issues with piracy. It optionally saves the game state anywhere you are in the game, regardless if there's a save checkpoint there or not, so that feature was really attractive to me. I gave the wireless controller a chance. It paired quickly and seemed to work fine, but the clicking drove me nuts, so I quickly plugged in the wired controller. I like that they thought to put rubber dust covers on all of the controller ports as well. I briefly misplaced one of the rubber covers and wondered if they sold these separately, but I found it later. I inserted a FAT32 formatted SD card for game saves, cheats and translation layers. If I had one more tiny gripe besides the controller, maybe having the SD card have a push in to lock spring-loaded mechanism instead of just push in and hope it's in all the way thing. That's about it. Overall, I think this unit is great so far. I love all of the added features it has, the dust covers, all of the different formats it supports.. I really have no idea what they were thinking of when they made the wireless controller, but it's somewhat usable in a pinch. Although this console isn't the heftiest of items, it was still better than the old third party SNES/NES unit I had. I just realized I also had another cheap unit that wasn't Hyperkin and that one was super cheap feeling. One last note: When inserting the cartridges, push in one side (left or right) first and then the other and it works better than straight pushing and removing, which I've always done before.

I would have given this 5 stars, but the reason it is getting 3 stars is because I had to send 2 back. The first one I got powered up, but didn't display any video or sound. The 2nd one displayed video and sound, but froze up after 5 minutes every time. The 3rd one works very well. I had it crash 3 times on me, but that was after putting many hours into it over days to make sure it is stable. Amazon's return policy is fantastic. I have no death grip issue like others have with the older models. The video quality is fantastic and add that with the video filters (which I assign to a macro button on the controller) the games look fantastic. The sound is great too. I really like the controller. On the 2nd retron 5 I got, it was okay, there was a little delay, but on the one that actually works, I notice no delay at all, so it might have just been part of the faulty device. If I run into a game that really requires fast reflexes like Punch Out or Battletoads and I find the controller isn't fast or precise enough, I have the option to plug in my own controllers. The save state feature is nice. I don't like writing down and inputting passwords, I can just save state whenever I want. That makes these games much more enjoyable for both general fun and time flexibility because I can't just sit there and play one game all day like when I was a kid. I hope the next retron supports the N64 (its patent should end this year) and perhaps the TurboGrafx 16. Edit: My retron 5 got pretty crashy with most games I put in, but the I did the software and firmware update and nothing has crashed since.

Great after a few tweaks. It's basically an emulator that converts your games into ROMS. I tried to do a custom firmware the first time and I bricked it. But I was able to recover. I then got the right firmware and I was able to play my games. You have to do display adjustments with modern tvs to make it look good. This was cheaper than buying a decent CRT and It plays all my favorite classic games.

質感は安っぽいと言われますが軽いって感じです。特に素材が薄いとかと言う感じはしません。カートリッジスロットは互換機にありがちな堅め仕様で抜く時にギリギリ金属音がします。ちょっと怖い気もしますが互換機慣れしている方でしたらそんなに気にはならないかと・・・。互換性ですが、他のサイトでも書かれていますけどハードウェア互換ではなくソフトウェア互換です。再現もかなりのものでメガアダプタも問題なく使用できました。RetroN3の時にも思いましたが、やっぱりHyperkinは中国で生産するのですね。コントローラーはちょっと斜めに入り易くて設定等で勝手に横入力されるのでコロコロ設定が変わり何かと難がありますが、純正コントローラーが使用できるので特に問題はありませんでした。RetroN3の時もそうでしたが、サンソフト製のメガドライブカートリッジは形状違いの為セットできませんね。本体をちょっと削ると問題なく動くと思いますが今回の本体はちょっと高いので抵抗もあります。

It is perfect, the wireless controller froze for a couple days, I had to take it apart an disconnect the battery, reconnected it an then it worked fine, thr console itself is exactly what it says it is , best purchase I made in a while a must have for retro gamers

Fantastica console multigame per diverse cartucce old game dal Famicon al Genesis molto facile ds usare...venditore eccellente e affidabile

Verarbeitung könnte besser sein aber für das Geld ist es ok 👌.

An absolutely fantastic console. Play all your old console games in the one place. Save space and no need to look for different controllers.