The Evercade Alpha Deluxe Edition Unboxing and Review

Gadgetry. Gizmos. Toys and contraptions. Such is the prevailing theme of the third millennium, an era in which everyone has a device, and a device for that device, stashed in his pocket, bag, or cabinet. Toys and widgets and conversational pieces fill every facet of modern man’s life. And chief among these is the gaming machine. Especially, the retro gaming machine.

Indeed, there’s been an obvious uptick in nostalgia among the Gen X and Millennial crowd, a certain hankering for the “old-school” goodness once taken for granted. Games that could be owned without worry of servers closing or patches having to be added. Games less about photorealism and more about style and whim. Games that didn’t come with EULA agreements and DRM checks. Games, frankly, that could just be inserted into their respective console and played straight away.

Small upstart Blaze Entertainment saw an opportunity here and, in 2020, released its so-called Evercade gaming handheld. More than an emulation machine, this device could accept cartridges in the vein of a Game Boy. No catches or licensing agreements. Just old-fashioned plastic with games stamped upon them.

Most of these early game packs were compilations of retro titles ranging from Pac-Man to Astrosmash. But, as Blaze got more ambitious and its hardware iterations more powerful, games of every flavor began appearing—classics not just from the arcade, SNES, and PlayStation eras, but even recent indie titles bearing that yesteryear sensibility. Ever hear of Goodboy Galaxy, Tanzer, Little Medusa, or Roniu’s Tale? Blaze’s Evercade elevated these games from the ephemeral to the physically pronounced.

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Although the Evercade’s ever-growing game library is certainly key to its success, the company has become rather prolific in its hardware revamps, too. Not long after the original portable released, Blaze consolized the tech into a TV-ready machine known as the Evercade VS. An upgraded handheld, the Evercade EXP, soon followed. And more recently, the “Super Pocket” line emerged for the more budget-conscious gamer.

But Blaze’s most recent invention is the Evercade Alpha, a self-contained arcade-esque tabletop (bartop) machine. Like the arcade cabinets of old, this 16-inch mini-monstrosity comes built with its own joystick controls, high-quality screen, and back-lit marquee. And it’s a piece of beauty…with some notable kinks.

The Alpha comes in two options—a Street Fighter-centric version, and the more eclectic Mega Man rendition. The former includes six built-in games—Street Fighter 2 Championship Edition, Super Street Fighter 2 Turbo, Street Fighter Alpha: Warrior’s Dreams, Street Fighter Alpha 2, Street Fighter Alpha 3, and Super Puzzle Fighter 2 Turbo. The Mega Man edition comes preloaded with six of its own unique titles—Mega Man: The Power Battle, Mega Man 2: The Power Fighters, Final Fight, Knights of the Round, Carrier Air Wing, and Strider.

Complicating matters further, however, is that both machines boast another two iterations; the standard model is more barebones, offering less accessories and lower-end controls, while the deluxe version adds a gamepad, a poster, a certificate of authenticity, a marquee for every included title, and upgraded, Sanwa controls. The deluxe version of the Mega Man cab will be the focus for this review.

Countertops/bartops have become a collector’s favorite, even fetish, in the last few years. Everyone in releasing a miniature of some kind, it seems, with Arcade1UP being both the most prominent and most notorious. Its early “countercade” machines suffered from lackluster screens and chintzy controls, but eventually, the devices evolved and became more respectable, offering a fine obelisk of counter candy for those with the cash to spend and space to lend.

The Evercade Alpha seems intent on channeling the Arcade1UP template; the machine’s basic build mirrors the latter’s form and shape to the point of being identical, notwithstanding a few extra flourishes. And like its competitor, the Alpha boasts no internal battery for easy transport and play. This is a wall outlet device, through and through.

But where the Alpha does excel is in its interchangeability. Up top, its marquees can be swapped out for others, meaning that the pre-installed Mega Man mylar can be switched for Final Fight, Strider, or any of the others. Exchanging these banners can be a slightly inelegant process—rather than merely lifting one out and sliding another in, the entire plastic sheath has to be popped off and then clumsily reinserted. A nitpick, certainly, but it’s enough of a hassle to discourage repeated swaps. A bigger issue, perhaps, is the incongruity between the cabinet art and the additional marquees. Does it make sense to add Carrier Airwing’s topside art to a cab otherwise full emblazoned with Mega Man? Not really, which reduces the marquees to being more of a dubious gimmick.

Fortunately, the Alpha offers another kind of interchangeability at the base of the unit. Here, on both sides of the central power button (itself disguised cleverly as a coin slot), two cartridge chutes exist for further expandability. This is the machine’s true specialty, its true source of worth, as it can accept all Evercade cartridges heretofore produced. While those Arcade1UP bartops usually kept its selection limited to a handful of games, the Alpha can currently support over 500 titles. And with Blaze’s upcoming SNK/Neo Geo partnership, this selection may go from good to spectacular.

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Not that every one of those five hundred or so titles work perfectly with the Alpha’s built-in joystick and buttons. The arcade titles, not surprisingly, work best considering their context and intent. The console-centric titles, however, range from excellent to miserable; Duke Nukem 3D, for instance, is a cumbersome mess with a joystick, but Donut Dodo plays wonderfully, feeling like the long-lost arcade game it was designed to be. Of course, the device’s USB ports support a wide range of gamepads, circumventing the stick while also opening multiplayer opportunities.

The issue, then, is more of form—the device just isn’t that big. And though multiplayer is encouraged, the reality of two players, let alone three, all crowding around the unit’s wee eight-inch screen is more of a chore than a luxury. A simple HDMI port could have been the easy workaround for this issue, but for whatever reason, Blaze Entertainment didn’t include one. The Alpha, for all its prestige and grandeur, will never transcend that oh-so-tiny screen.

Moreover, despite being of the premium Sanwa build, the controls don’t impress like expected. The joystick is satisfyingly clicky, but lacks the octagonal gates usually associated with higher-end units. In layman’s terms, an octagonal, eight-way joystick offers the increased flexibility and fluidity a four-way can’t match; why it was excluded from the “premium” version is as confounding as the lack of an HDMI port. The buttons, similarly, are perfectly functional but lack the extra “clack” and weight their genuine arcade counterparts. The absence of a plexiglass or acrylic overlay for the control panel rounds out the disappointment; the constant rub of oily palms will inevitably wear that lovely artwork away.

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The Evercade Alpha is a stately unit—the finest iteration of the Evercade line Blaze Entertainment has devised. And yet, it’s also a machine without a clear objective—what problem does it mean to solve, what purpose does it truly fulfill? It’s too big for easy carry or travel, but too small for serious multiplayer, and definitely too tiny to provide a bonafide arcade experience. The screen is vivid and the speakers offer a nice boom, but any decent television can offer the same at far greater dimension. Even the square-gated arcade controls provide only a tenuous advantage over the typical gamepad, offering a modest improvement for some games while outright failing for others. Essentially, the Alpha finds an unwieldy compromise between its handheld and console counterparts, offering a somewhat dubious, diluted alternative to both sides of the divide.

The Alpha is indeed the very definition of niche, a device not unlike an “upgraded” toaster that comes in chrome and packs a built-in radio, but loses two of its four browning slots in the process. It’s an improvement…but only from a certain point-of-view. The charitable will deem the Alpha as a high-dollar monument to Mega Man or Street Fighter 2, the perfect piece of desk candy for an office or bedroom. But the more skeptical will wonder if it’s more useful than, say, the Evercade VS-R console that can essentially do all the same things once joined to a TV. Does the Alpha present a better value at $250 than the VS-R at $99?

Maybe. The Alpha is akin to an encyclopedia set displayed proudly from a bookcase. Both are stately. Both add a certain prestige to any room or vicinity. Both, in theory, are useful.

And both, usually, become but the background…sitting pretty but barely seen.--D

The Evercade Alpha Deluxe Edition's Box, Inside and Out

The Evercade Alpha Deluxe unit and its accompanying accessories--a gamepad, marquee mylars, certificate of authenticity, and a poster. The Deluxe's higher price point is worth it for the poster alone, right? Right?

Above: The Alpha's marquee plate and 8-inch screen must both be peeled before their splendor can be fully revealed. It can be a clumsy process removing every scrap of plastic. Below: Two Evercade cartridges can be loaded at any time, significantly boosting the available game count of the unit. The faux coin slot serves as the clever power button.

Once activated, the Alpha simulates a coin-op's classic boot-up sequence, then spills into the main menu with a preview of the game at hand. Mega Man: The Power Battle, the featured title, plays well with the included controls and setup.

Pic 1: Evercade games not only come on cartridges, but in tiny plastic clamshell cases. Pic 2: Donut Dodo, a fantastic indie title, works quite well with the square-gated stick and controls. Pic 3: Shooters' offer a mixed performance on the Alpha, with the square gate joystick not always offering the most accurate, smoothest controls (it's not bad for the slow-paced In the Hunt, though, as shown). Pic 4: The Alpha's stick and buttons certainly suffice, but they lack the clacky, more haptic feel of more premium controls, as shown on AtGames' Legends Ultimate arcade stick.

The Alpha is perhaps best for games of slower, more limited movement. It's especially fine for brawler, basic platformer, and some shooters.