Over the last few years, the retro floodgates have opened - and it’s honestly never been a better time to be an elderly gamer. If you want to relive the glories of your childhood there are now numerous options from a wide variety of companies - but this latest contender might be one of the most exciting yet. I’ve seen a few Game Boy-alikes in my time.
Just one year ago I reviewed the Super Pocket , a super cheap and simple offering from the team behind Evercade. The gold standard for the form remains the Analogue Pocket , a luxury and feature-filled device that keeps getting better with updates . The Chromatic slots into this pantheon on the higher end, rivalling the Pocket - though its approach is markedly different in important ways.
First thing’s first: this is a Game Boy . If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck..
. well, this is that. It’s got that same familiar form factor - B and A buttons, Select and Start, a D-Pad, power switch, volume rocker.
.. everything is where you’ll remember it.
The form factor is alarmingly close to the Game Boy Color, though divergent enough to be ‘Legally Distinct.’ So, if we’re getting more specific, this is a Game Boy Color. That definition brings interesting advantages, drawbacks, and considerations that we’ll dig into a little later in this article.
But for now, let me start out with some broadly declarative praise - this is one of the nicest pieces of handheld gaming hardware I’ve ever used. A lot of this is do.
