Old challengers: Five of the best classic consoles that made a 'mini' comeback
Classic consoles like the Super Nintendo have been subject to a wave of reboots and restorations over the past few years. Pic: Jens Mahnke
This morning has seen the announcement by gaming specialists Koch Media of the latest retro-gaming device to help the perpetually nostalgic while away another few hours.
The A500 Mini is an officially-licenced trip all the way back to the eighties and nineties, when home computers like the Amiga 500 towered over their console cousins, and packed plenty of full-scale gaming experiences the likes of the Super Nintendo and MegaDrive could only manage with some severe compromises.
It comes pre-loaded with some of the fan-favourites of the era among its 32 games, including combat/comedy clash , mascot platformer , and future-sports classic .Â
Of course, this might feel a bit late to the party for seasoned gamers, who have been spoiled for choice by a market full of scaled-down clones of the all-time classics over the past few years.Â
If you're looking for a quality way to dig into the button-bashers of yesteryear, look no further than our fave five mini machines.
The root of the resurrected retro boxes craze, Nintendo's 2016 love letter to its eighties pop-culture juggernaut is a marvellous bit of tech, fitting thirty 8-bit classics into a neat and tidy facsimile of the cartridge-gobbling behemoth.Â
The . trilogy, , and other medium-defining classics are all here in their glory, and have aged well - assisted by a save-state function that helps newer gamers beat the difficulty curve by being able to leave games off and pick up as they need to.
There were two much-sought-after waves of the NES Classic, both of which have long sold out from retail, but they can be found for a pretty penny at the like of CEX, or online. It's well worth the investment however - the hardware is sturdy, and the controllers feel like the real deal.
As surely as night follows day, Nintendo chased the retro hysteria into Christmas of 2017 with another emulation box, this time resurrecting its beloved Super Nintendo, with another 30 gaming classics seeing the light of day in immaculate condition.
Game-changers like , and are among the classics on offer - as well as rare European outings for US-exclusive titles like and . The big news, however, was the inclusion of the unreleased , a sequel to the SNES' beloved space-battler, that was completed in 1995, late in the original machine's life.
Like its NES sibling, the SNES Classic was the subject of massive hype, and two manufacturing runs of the machine both sold out from retail in short order. It's well worth tracking down online or at a CEX, though: retro-gaming experiences don't get much better.
They might have lost the nineties console wars with some spectacularly bad decisions, but Sega's MegaDrive system is still revered by gamers of a certain age for providing a cool and capable alternative to Nintendo's family-friendly fare.
In the years since Sega exited the console market in 2001, however, there's no doubt that the console's legacy has taken a beating by way of endless reissues and merchandising, including a string of poorly-built plug-and-play machines bearing its name at Argos. All of which served to make the MegaDrive Mini, co-developed by retro specialists M2, a joy to behold.
Classics like and are of course all present and correct, while the addition of two unreleased games - hard-to-find conversions of puzzle classic and side-scrolling shooter - make this a must-buy for the Sega-curious. It's not as tricky to grab in the wild as the Nintendo boxes - but it did start to get scarce as locked-down gamers sought retro warm-and-fuzzies.
The inclusion of this one is going to raise a few eyebrows among the nerds, but bear with us.Â
There's no denying Sony absolutely made a hames of its PlayStation Classic, looking to ride the retro wave with a cheap-and-cheerful Android box running a limited selection of games from the first PlayStation's still-massive catalogue.
But, the emulation is more than serviceable, especially as it can be found at bargain-bucket prices online after a frosty critical and commercial reception - while the technically-savvy among us are more than capable of expanding its abilities and selection with a bit of know-how.Â
But even if you were to leave well enough alone, for around 25-40 beans, it's arguably a convenient way of giving , , and a good rinsing.
If the SNES and MegaDrive were the kings of the mainstream games market of the '90s, then SNK's NeoGeo was its Rolls-Royce - a full-scale arcade board, ported over to a home console with no compromises, and providing advanced 2D entertainment, albeit at a premium price for games and machine alike.
Weighing in at about €80 for a base package online, the NeoGeo Mini bears none of the baggage of exclusivity years later - but loses something in going the cheap-and-cheerful route, with the self-contained screen and buttons providing arcade-style novelty for a few moments.
Line it into a telly with a HDMI lead and grab an optional controller, however, and the International Edition of the machine is a handy box of relatively hidden gems, including multiple instalments of the and series, and cult classics like and the still-astonishing .
