Anbernic RG ARC: Great for SEGA and Fighters

[Music] hey everybody this is rust Metro gamecore today we are going to review a new amberi device this is called The Ark there's actually two different models there's the arcd which is this one here it comes in black and gray and it has a couple extra features it has a touchcreen and can dual boot into both Linux and Android it's a little bit more expensive it's about $100 after shipping and all of that and then there's a cheaper model which is called The Ark s and this is about 80 bucks this one doesn't have a touchscreen and can only boot into Linux now the chipset on these devices is nothing special we've seen it for a couple years now it is the rock chip RK 3566 you may know that from the ambern RG 353 series but then also a few pal Kitty devices like the rgb3 and the x55 so when it comes to the upper limit of performance that means you'll be able to play most Nintendo 64 Sega Saturn and Dreamcast games with a couple tweaks here and there now there's a few reasons why I find this device so exciting number one is the fact that it's obviously modeled after like a Sega Saturn controller or the six button Sega Genesis controller that's pretty cool and very nostalgic on top of that we have six face buttons that's pretty rare in handhelds that's going to make it awesome when it comes to fighting games on top of that we have a classic d-pad that's modeled after the old Sega ones as well and it actually works really well so that's going to be pretty awesome too and then finally it's a 4 in 4x3 aspect ratio display that means it's going to be nice and big when it comes to playing retro systems and this is obviously modeled specifically for retro gaming it doesn't have any analog sticks which can cause some problems with those more advanced systems but when it comes to playing those classic games it's going to be an excellent fit so what we're going to do in this video here is just really pick everything apart and see whether or not this device is going to be worth buying for you and your specific use case we got a lot of ground to cover and so grab a snack and drink and let's go ahead and get [Music] started okay as always let's get started with these specs like I mentioned this has an RK 3566 chipset which is a quad core CPU the device also comes with lpddr4 ram you'll get 1 gig with the low-end model and 2 gigs with the high-end one and the amount of ram here is not going to make a difference when it comes to emulation they just put 2 GB in the one that dual boots into Android and that's because Android does require more RAM just to work sufficiently now the high-end model also has internal storage 30 2 GB and again this is for Android because it's installed on that internal storage the display here is 4 in with a 480p resolution and a 4x3 aspect ratio and it is an OCA laminated panel and it'll be touchscreen with the high-end model and not for the other and the battery here is 3500 milliamp hours that's a solid size for a device like this you should get an average of about 6 hours of gameplay depending on what you're playing and for its size It's relatively lightweight 243 G for connectivity we have dualband Wi-Fi as as well as Bluetooth 4.2 which means we'll be able to connect to the internet to earn retro achievements but then also connect to external controllers if we'd like now the Linux operating system is based on a version of Basera and of course the topend model will also boot into Android and this is the same version of Android we've seen on other devices from amberik like the RG 353 series other than that a couple other features worth noting is that it does have a mini HDMI port so you can connect this to an external Monitor and of course we'll test that later in the video and and then finally we also have a 3.5 mm headphone jack now as of releasing this video the device has not gone up for sale just yet but if you're watching this on the day it releases then it should be out in less than 24 hours and one of the things amernick does when they first release a device is that they give it a discount in the first 48 hours and so as you can see here you'll save about $8 between each device if you order it early and note that they don't plan on shipping it until around 20th of November so about 2 weeks from now now depending on the model you get you will have different color options the arc D or the high-end model will come in solid colors they have this one that they're calling gray and then another that they're calling black and these are the only two color options you can get for that price point at the lower end price point we have a similar situation where we have two different colors we have a transparent black and then what they're calling transparent blue but looks very purple to my eyes I do think it's weird that they're limiting colorways to specific models because if you want to have a transparent one but Android unfortunately you cannot either way that's the setup they have right now for this release next let's move into to the unboxing it's a pretty standard and straightforward process it will come with a USBC to usba charging cable and it'll also come with a screen protector and a quick start user manual as well but let's get to the good stuff and check out the device First Impressions in the hand this is a bit larger than I was expecting but it is a 4-in display so it does kind of make sense that it is a little bit bigger and as expected I'm getting a very strong Sega Vibe overall next we'll take a comparison between the two models obviously the arcs on the bottom is going to be transparent and and the look of it is a little bit odd to my eye just because it almost reminds me of a Nintendo 64 colorway but of course we're looking at it with a Sega design regardless if you like transparent consoles you might like this now let's go ahead and dive a little bit deeper into the black model first thing I love to test is the texture of the plastic and the plastic here is relatively smooth but doesn't attract fingerprints and the texture definitely reminds me of old Sega Genesis controllers so I think they nailed it in that regard now I think that many people are most curious about the d-pad on this device after all this is the first time they've used a Sega style one in an Amber product and I will say that just first impressions of just touching it without any sort of comparison it definitely does remind me of an old Sega controller it has that floating disc kind of feel to it so I think if you're someone who hasn't touched a Sega controller in a while and you're looking for something very similar I think you'll be convinced right off the bat however I tend to be a bit critical about my d-pads and I like to get into the details and knowing that they were coming out with a Sega style controller I decided to basically pick up all the other ones that they were going to emulate so to start I have my original Sega Genesis controller this is an old three button one back from the 9s in addition I lost my six button controller years ago so I picked up another one on eBay and even though I don't own a Sega Saturn I thought it was a good time to pick up one of these controllers just to kind of wrap my head around them and then finally I also have an 8bit D m30 controller this is supposed to be a Sega Saturn style as well so I want to do a quick dive into each of these d-pads just to make sure we're all in the same sheet of music starting with the three button Genesis controller this one has a hard plastic texture to it and it also has that same sort of pivot as the amernick device we're reviewing today now all of the original Sega d-pads are quite a bit larger and so because that it does feel like I have a little bit more control to it in the fact that I have a bit more Nuance control as I shift the pad around now the six button controller has a similar feel as you pivot it around but the texture of the pad itself is different it feels more like a really hard rubber than a hard plastic so the look and feel of it is very similar to the three button controller we were just looking at but the texture itself is grippier and softer under my finger now the Sega Saturn controller is very similar to the six button one however as I move it around in the eight-way directions it doesn't quite click as much as the other two we were just testing Instead This one feels like it has a more soft and subtle click as it goes through those diagonals and I have no idea how old this controller is because I picked it up on eBay so it just might be really worn in and then finally going over to the m30 this one has a very similar texture in that kind of hard rubber feel but the pivot and clickiness to me is more similar to The Genesis controllers than it was for the Saturn one either way these are very subtle differences between the four and I think we have a good idea of what to expect with the amernick one and there are a couple distinctions worth noting number one the d-pad on the amernick is quite a bit smaller than the others and I think that does reduce the fine grain details that you would get if you were really tuned into those older Sega controllers and then also like I mentioned the texture is different it's a hard plastic like it was on the original Genesis controller and as a result it has a bit more slick of a texture compared to the Sega Saturn in particular but I got to be honest it still feels really good in fact I kind of think that am bernick nailed it it's definitely not a 100% solution but I would say it's at least 90 maybe 95% of the way there now let's talk about actual real world use case we'll start with fighting games and when it comes to quarter circles like the haduken move that I had absolutely no problem here I was missing inputs every once in a while but I was kind of getting acclimated to the feel and the pacing of the game and this is also recorded in just my first maybe 20 minutes with the device anyway and so as a result I do think this controller is haduken B and I think it'll only get better from here as I get more practice next we'll talk about sh yukin or the dragon punch move this one's a little bit more involved and nuanced but I still found that most of the time I could pull it off with no problem again I haven't really acclimated to this d-pad yet and so I do think it's a promising sign that about 80% of the time I am nailing it and I wouldn't say it's a perfect Recreation of that Genesis or Saturn experience but man it is very close finally let's do a contra Test Now by default these controllers are relatively loose along the finger and so I really don't have any high hopes that we can avoid any false diagonals whatsoever and as I press down on the d-pad and then rock it left and right I am seeing some character movement but the thing about it every time that my character moves I know it's going to move ahead of time so to me it's not really an accidental diagonal because I can feel it actually moving towards the diagonal instead I think this is just the natural result of using a d-pad that has a disk style design to it and so to summarize I don't think I'm getting accidental diagonals here it's just that the diagonal pivot is a lot easier to reach and of course that's a very nuanced take on it but as it stands when actually playing this Contra game it's a really great time because if I want to duck down without hitting a diagonal I can totally do that but at the same time I can hit those diagonals no problem as well and so as a result when playing a game that relies on circular controls like Contra this is actually an improved experience over a cross style d-pad in other words yes I think it fails the traditional contra test but all the same this is a controller I'd love to use when playing Contra next let's move over to the face buttons and first impressions here they are very comfortably large in fact when compared to other Amber Nick buttons they feel massively oversized and I really love that feeling and these are rubber membrane connections and have a good amount of travel to them too it reminds me very much so of these pyogenesis controllers that I used growing up and the buttons are also very solidly in place so we're not getting a lot of play or wiggle either now when comparing to the other original controllers yes they are quite a bit smaller than the OEM One For example the Sega Saturn buttons are kind of massive by today's standards even the 8bit dough ones which are a little bit smaller than those are still bigger than what you would find on the amck so when it comes down to it yes they are smaller than OEM controllers but still large by Amber Nick standards and as a result they feel very comfortable and roomy so I have no complaints about these face buttons I think they are adequately placed and sized and I love the fact that this is a 100% d-pad Centric device the ergonomics here really flow into your hand hand and so I'm able to just use all these controls and it feels really good and pretty authentic as well I also like the fact that we have front-facing speakers and my Palms don't cover them up so that's a nice detail as well finally on the front we also have our select and start buttons up top and it's also a Dead Ringer in design and feel to the Sega Saturn controller now let's take a look at the I/O up top on the far left we have our USBC charging port and then after that we have our OTG Port this is where you'll plug in an external wired controller after that we have our mini HDM my port you would plug this into an external monitor or TV and then we have our function button this will bring up the menu in most emulators and this will also function as your hotkey enable button after that we have our volume up and down and then our sleep and power button and that's really about it up top other than the shoulders and triggers first things first let's talk about these shoulder buttons they're a little bit thin but overall they're easy to press down on and have a nice rubber membrane feel to them so they definitely have a softer feel to them compared to these Sega Saturn shoulder buttons which were a lot more clicky next let's take a look at these shoulder buttons number one it's kind of amazing that amberi use stack shoulders because it's kind of rare that they do this on their devices now this is also using some sort of rubber membrane or soft Dome click and it is a digital input so no analog input here and it also pivots from an inner hinge that means that when you press done on it you'll probably want to do it more on the outside of the button than closer to the top either way these buttons are very easy to press down on and they do have a soft satisfying thk to them next let's take a look at the screen now one nice thing here is that it's actually inset into the case this means that even if you add the screen protector to it it's still not going to be flush with the device itself and I think that gives it an extra added layer of protection in case you happen to accidentally drop it additionally I like the fact that we have relatively thin bezels all around so it is a pretty impressive screen especially for a device that costs 100 bucks or less finally let's take a look at the I/O on the bottom on the far left we have a reset button but this is inset so you'd have to use something like a paperclip to actually touch it and that's the first time I've seen am bernick do something like that now we also have two SD card slots on the left side it'll be our Linux operating system and this will come pre-loaded in the device when you buy it and they're using a 16 GB card from a company called kokia and this company used to be a branch of Toshiba until about 5 years ago also on the bottom we have our headphone jack and then another SD card slot this is where you're going to put a higher capacity card and then fill it up with all of your ROMs like with many other amberi devices on the market looking at the back here pretty unadorned other than the amernick logo and then we have these slightly curved grips on each side very similar to how it was on the Sega satle controller now one of the benefits of having a largest style handheld like this is that we have plenty of space for our hands and fingers on the back especially when you consider the fact that your index fingers are probably going to rest on these shoulders or triggers that means that you're going to have a lot of space for your other fingers on the back I think that regardless of the size of your hands you're going to find this hand held comfortable and here's another angle and you can see that there is plenty of space for My Hands Across the back of it not only that the overall roundedness of this controller really does kind of melt into your palms and so it feels extremely comfortable so from an ergonomic standpoint I think this is probably one of the most comfortable devices that amberi has ever made not only can I reach all the buttons with absolutely no problem but I love how rounded it is as well this is something that I could play for hours on end now in terms of recreation I don't think it's a perfect fit for example with the Sega Saturn controller this one definitely had more angled ergonomics as you can see as it kind of points towards the center and so in terms of design this is kind of a mixture between the Sega Saturn and Sega Genesis controller which was a little bit more rounded but overall I have no complaints about the feel of this device in my hands in fact I think it's kind of a home run not only is it sufficiently wide to feel very luxurious but it's quite thick as well which means that you have a lot of space to grip too and in terms of design the transparent models are going to be almost identical the only parts that are really different is that the insection where the buttons and d-pad are are glossy and again this is a design that calls back to the original Genesis controllers because they were like that as well but overall the feel of the arcs is very similar to the arcd that we were just nitpicking even the texture of the plastic is very similar the only other main difference I can point out is that the buttons are gray against the transparent blue and I do like that contrast and I kind of wish that the black model had gray shoulder and Trigger buttons as well okay now let's do a quick comparison with size and weight compared to other devices on the market we'll start with the 353 device this is the RG 353m this one has the same chip inside but a 3.5 in screen instead of four and of course this one has a much more compact design compared to the arm now unfortunately I don't have the RG 353 p with me that's the Super Nintendo style controller and so I wish I could compare against them but unfortunately I just don't have one to compare with right now however I do have other devices with the same chipset so let's grab a couple of those we'll start with the pal Kitty x55 this one has a 16x9 aspect ratio display so it is quite a bit wider and as you can see the x55 is larger than the ark as well next we have the paly RGB 30 this one also has a 4-in display but it's Square so was a little bit more narrow and tall and you can see this one also has a more compact design next up we have the amernick RG 45m this one has a 4-in display and it's also 4x3 in fact the panels between the two are very very similar same resolution and everything however as you can see the 405m also has that same compact kind of style to it and as a result it is quite a bit smaller next up is the retroid pocket 3 plus this one has a 16x9 aspect ratio display but still just a tiny bit smaller than the IC Arc next let's move on to devices that are larger so up first we have the Nintendo switch light I was kind of surprised to see that this one was not that much bigger than the amerck and then also for comparison sake here is the Odin 2 followed by the Rog Ally and then finally the steam deck now despite its size it's actually a pretty lightweight feeling device as you can see it's only 243 G that's actually the exact same weight as the retroid pocket 3 plus and it's also nearly 25 G lighter than the rg405 M either way I'm very happy with the size and weight of the device we're reviewing today it's definitely not something I would ever consider to be heavy and so I can just kind of lug it around no problem and that 4-in display does make it a lot easier on the eyes for me now that being said this is not a device I would consider to be pocketable and of course that all really depends on your pockets for example here with just my regular shorts yes they fit inside but I'm not really sure I'd like to walk around with this device in my pocket and so for my taste I think it's just a little bit too big to be considered pocketable but I think there are probably people out out there who are going to disagree with that statement instead I think this is a device that you could throw in a case and make it very backpackable and it just so happens that am bernick did send me over one of their cases that go along with this device and these are going to be up for sale on their website as well and I think they're going to be about 10 bucks and I have to say that you know amberx sends me a lot of these cases with their devices and I rarely show them because I don't like them but for this device I do think it does make a lot of sense it also has a bit extra space up top if you want to throw in your cable or nesty card and they did make a mold for the bottom part of the hard shell case that means it's going to fit perfectly inside and you don't have to worry about it jostling around and so while you might be able to find like a hard drive case that'll actually fit it I think that $10 is worth a piece of mind to get that official one just so that you can throw it in your backpack and not worry about it at all at the end of the day yes I think this is a largest device but it's also very comfortable to hold as a result next Let's do an audio test with Sega CD at 100% volume [Music] [Music] and I think the audio here is pretty good obviously it's not going to be something that's going to blow me away with a device that's under 100 bucks but I do like the fact that it's front firing and I I think that the audio itself is relatively clear so at this price point yeah I think the speakers here are just fine now before we move on to the software section I do have a couple other points to make number one we'll talk about the screen like I mentioned this is 4 in and 4x3 and that's going to give you a large size experience here's a contrast with the rgb3 this one is a 4in display that works really well with Retro Gaming but it is a square aspect ratio so when showing 4x3 content you will get some big black bars on the top and bottom and of course even though it is a 4-in screen you're not going to get 4 in of 4x3 instead it's closer to something like 3.6 so a little bit better than 3.5 but you can also see that a 4 in 4x3 display like on the amberik arc is quite a bit larger now in terms of just color balance and saturation and all those other qualities about the screen I do think this is pretty good in fact it's very similar to the other amberi devices with a 4-in display and so overall I have positive feelings about the screen I think it is just fine especially at this price point next let's test out the light bleed from the transparent model and as as you can see here when I turn out the lights completely it actually is very very solid you can obviously see the LED light but it's not going to be bleeding throughout the rest of the case and same thing with the screen even when you turn it over it's not bleeding through at all so surprisingly this is a transparent device that you can easily play in the dark with no problem next I wanted to note that both in Android and in Linux the sleep function seems to work just fine so when you tap on the button in the middle of a game it'll put it to sleep and then when you tap on it again it'll wake it right up now I haven't had the device long enough to be able to test the actual battery drain when in sleep but at the very least if you're just going to turn it off and leave it for a few minutes or even up to an hour I think it'll be just fine another thing worth noting the company says it's capable of charging with a USBC to USBC cable and I did find that to be true but it depended on the power delivery profile of the source for example a 65 wat charger does not charge it but I did find that an 18w charger worked just fine next let's talk about software now amernick did send me one of their pre-loaded cards this one is a 128 GB card which you can also purchase when making your order on their website either way I want to test it out so we can see exactly what that stock experience is going to be like when you first spoot it up it's going to ask you which language you want to use obviously we're going to go with English and then it's going to take a couple minutes to initialize but after that you'll be Creed by this main menu screen and this one's kind of interesting I've never seen this on a Linux based firmware with an amberik device but essentially you have two main sections you have an emulator section which will show all of your Standalone systems so this will mostly be for your high-end emulation and then also you're going to have a retroarch section this is going to show all the systems that can be played within retroarch and of note some of these are overlapping for example a Nintendo 64 is in both categories and we also have a couple additional sections like an apps one and this will allow you to go through the factory reset again there's also a port section but there's not a lot going here other than a link to Port Master other than that most of the other options are going to be accessed through the main menu which you can bring up by pressing start here you can do things like adust adjust the sound settings as well as pair a Bluetooth controller and this is also where you'll go to connect to Wi-Fi and then also you can set up Moonlight streaming if you want to do that as well now under the game settings you can make adjustments to things like the aspect ratio or turning on Integer scaling but we're going to leave everything as is since we're testing the stock experience of note you also have a per system Advance configuration so if you want to make any changes any a per system basis you can do that as well under the UI settings you have a couple different theme options let me run you through those real quick this one here is called theme two and here is what theme three looks like and then finally our fourth one is as you can expect called theme 4 either way we're going to stick with the default theme for the rest of the video overall I think the user interface is fairly straightforward although I do think it's kind of odd that you have two different main sections both retroarch and emulators and so if you're a new user this might be a little bit confusing but I would recommend using retroarch for the lower-end systems and then go into the emulator section with any of that higher-end stuff like Nintendo 64 and Beyond next I want to do a quick look at some of the games that are pre-loaded on that second SD card and like always the collection here is going to be very mismatched for example with Sega Saturn there are only four games listed right here and based on their naming it's kind of hard to tell what games these are in the first place either way I did test out a couple so for example we have this one called Outlaws of the Lost Dynasty and this one seemed to work at 100% full speed so no problem there next up there's Street Fighter the movie that's preloaded but this one seemed pretty buggy for example you can see the bottom half of the screen has some weird glitching but regardless this one ran pretty good although it did have frame skip enabled now I also tested some of the other games that are on the card and I found that some of these were just completely unplayable for example Street Fighter 2 Championship Edition is like completely hacked so when you throw a fireball it throws like five of them and not only that it's like super sped up and the computer is like really high difficulty as well not only that sometimes the players would just like float in midair it was just a really strange experience and it's not surprising considering the fact that a lot of these preloaded cards just come with these garbage hacked games by the way to exit out of a game while in Linux you press the F button and start at the same time now that being said a lot of the games actually played just fine it was just that the naming conventions were a little bit weird and as always there were a bunch of like duplicates and stuff like that either way that's a really quick look at the Linux firmware here on that pre-loaded card next we're going to use the dual booting arcd model to get into the Android side and to do that you're going to press and hold the F button while pressing the power button after a couple seconds the device will turn on and now instead of showing that Sega style am bernick logo we're getting their original one and after a few moments it's going to pop over to the Android side again when it first starts up it's going to ask you your language and then it'll take a couple minutes to configure but once it's done It'll ask you to press the start button and so here we are with the default amberik Android experience and this is very similar to the other devices they've launched before for example it comes pre-loaded with a bunch of Android apps and as before they've made some shady selections with the default apps for example we have the paid versions of the Saturn Nintendo 64 and Nintendo DS emulators and to top it off like their other devices this does not come with the Google Play Store so if you want to add any other emulators or Android games you're going to have to sideload them yourself now one thing the amernick offers with their Android devices is a front-end launcher and to access this you're going to swipe down from the top menu and then press the amernick logo this will take you directly into their front end launcher and when it first sets up it's going to ask you to press the continue button from there it'll extract the retroarch APK so that you can run those emulators and once it's done doing that you just have to exit out of retroarch and then from there it's a pretty simple interface you're just going to navigate left and right pick your system and then pick your game and if you have one of those pre-loaded SD cards everything is going to work right out of the box for example if we go into the Sega Genesis section we can pick up a game and it's going to boot like that and so that's a pretty easy and seamless experience on the Android side and to exit a game you're just going to press the the F button and then navigate to Exit through the menu either way I tested this with quite a few games and yeah they all seem to boot up just fine however there are some configuration things set up on the Android side that are not quite perfect for example with Nintendo 64 the d-pad is still mapped to the d-pad on the N64 however this is a device that relied pretty heavily on analog controls so for example if we try to play Perfect Dark then we're not going to be able to actually move the character all we can do is strafe and then look up and down other games like Wave Race 64 doesn't control at all and of course this makes sense if we bring up a gam pad tester app you can see that the d-pad is reflected as a d-pad all the other buttons are also registered correctly however the main issue here is if you're trying to play any game that relies on a left or right analog stick you just don't have the input for it but depending on the game that you're playing there are some workarounds so for example if we go into the Nintendo 64 emulator we can make a new controller profile and then we can map the analog up down left and right with the d-pad controls instead so that is going to unlock the ability to play other games for example wave R 64 now works just fine and then same thing with perfect dark and others just bear in mind that by setting it up this way you are losing functionality of the d-pad at the same time so if you are playing a Nintendo 64 game that also relies on a d-pad at the same time as an analog stick you're going to be kind of out of luck now one advantage to using Nintendo 64 on Android is that it performs much better than on Linux basically any game that you try to play on the Nintendo 64 emulator with an Android is going to work just fine however it's not quite the same story when it comes to Linux we're going to bounce between the two for the next few systems so here we are back on Linux and I'm testing out a few games and I did find that the lightweight and middleweight games you know things like Mario 64 all the way up to oakarina of time yeah these are all playing at full speed so chances are if you want to play a game that isn't super intensive it's probably going to play just fine on the Linux side but once you start getting to that higher tier of Nintendo 64 games you know something like Cruis in USA yeah unfortunately it's not going to play at full speed now personally I'm not really sure how many Nintendo 64 games you're going to want to play on a layout like this especially considering the fact that we only have one directional input we can't use both d-pad and the analog stick at the same time either way if one of your main priorities is playing Nintendo 64 games then I would recommend getting the one that can dual boot into Android next I want to take a look at Sega Dreamcast comparing both Android and Linux we're going to start with Android using the default reddream emulator and you can see here at the native 480p resolution these games are not playing at full speed and also bear in mind that redream has autof frame skip enabled and the games that we're testing right now Crazy Taxi 2 and Sonic Adventure 2 these are like middleweight games so the fact that these are not running at full speed on Android is not a good sign for example the Standalone emulator they're offering is flycast this one also has frame skip enabled but as you can see it's about as slow as it was on Android and again Sonic Adventure 2 at this speed is not something I would consider to be playable however within the retroarch menu you also have the ability to run your Dreamcast game games and I found that this ran actually a lot better bear in mind it is also using a frame skip so it's not going to be perfect emulation but the speed is much faster in fact it's to the point where I would consider it to be playable here's another example with dead or alive 2 in Android using the redream with frame skip turned on we're only getting about 45 frames per second and you can feel that slowdown very tangibly meanwhile in retro work on Linux we are still using that frame skip but it just feels a lot smoother and faster so again this is a system I would prefer to play on Linux over Android so when it comes down to it even though Android is an advantage with Nintendo 64 it is not with the Dreamcast now of course I would consider these two systems to be secondary to the systems you're going to want to actually play with this control setup so let's move over to Sega Saturn we'll start with the Android side again and I did find that lightweight games like Sonic 3D Blast they played perfectly fine in the yabatan Shiro Standalone emulator available in Android I also found that RPGs you know like magic Knight Ray Earth these play just fine too I got a little bit of slowdown here and there but it wasn't that bad and while a lot of people would say that the Standalone version of yamasan Shiro on Android is probably one of the most performant options I found the opposite to be true when comparing it to Linux on this device for example with Die Hard arcade I would definitely not consider this to be playable it is very slow however on the Linux side with the Standalone yasan shirro emulator again with frame skip turned on it's actually just fine again this isn't going to be a perfect Saturn experience especially if you're a purist and want to make sure you get it full frame rate but all the same I would consider this one to be playable now I have two other examples to show off we'll start with Virtual Fighter 2 and it's a very similar thing here the Android version of yamasan Shiro does play very slowly I'm getting an average of about 36 37 frames per second even with auto frame skip turned on meanwhile in Linux we're not getting a full 60 but pretty close something like 5556 and so while it's not perfect it's a night and day improvement over the Android version one of the harder games to emulate is Sega Rally Championship and again on Android it really can't keep up I'm seeing an average of about 35 maybe 40 frames per second here and there meanwhile on the Linux side there were many times where it actually went up to a full 60 but on average I probably would say maybe a 50 55 and it's really going to depend on you whether or not you would consider this to be playable but honestly I had a great time playing it on the Linux side so when it comes down to it I'm not saying that Sega Saturn is 100% playable on Linux really it's probably never going to be playable on this chipset it's just not powerful enough and it is a little bit ironic considering the fact that we have a device shaped like a Sega Saturn controller and really it can't play every single Sega Saturn game that being said I would say the majority of the catalog is going to be playable within Linux just bear in mind it is going to require frame Skip and it's not going to be a full 60 frames per second with every game either way I found many of them to be playable and I really enjoyed using that six button layout in fact it really enhanced The Experience because I knew exactly what the developer was thinking when they ma the controls the way they did and thankfully this all works out of the box also six buttons are perfectly mapped now let's move over to some emulation testing for the rest of this video I'm going to be using my own personal ROMs that I loaded up onto that second SD card and this was very simple all I had to do was put in a second SD card it populated it with my folders and then I took that SD card and put it into my computer and then moved over all my own ROM files and so that's how I got them all onto this system either way we're going to start with Sega Genesis because obviously this is the other system I really want to play on the Emerick Arc and as you can imagine this is a perfect fit I loved playing Sega Genesis games on this device personally I grew up with a Sega Genesis we had an NES to start with and then when it came to the 16-bit era we went with Sega and I think part of that had to do with the fact that it was cheaper than a Super Nintendo but either way I'm intimately familiar with the Sega Genesis catalog and I have to say this is one of the best ways I've ever played Sega Genesis on an emulation handheld the feel of the d-pad and the face buttons are almost a Dead Ringer to me if it wasn't for the fact that I was just testing a bunch of OEM controllers I would honestly think that this is just like the old experience and like I mentioned it's like 90% of the way there anyway so it's a really neat experience so if you are a Sega fan like me I think you're really going to enjoy playing Sega Genesis on the amernick arc and another nice detail here is that the six button configuration is mapped out of the box so for example with Mortal Kombat 3 which is a game I used to play with the six button controller yeah works fine same thing with Street Fighter 2 special Champion Edition this one works perfectly out of the box with the six button layout and it's nice I didn't have to go into these settings all I just booted up the game and it all perfectly worked and it's going to be the same story with Sega CD and Sega 32x if you're playing a game that supports it for example Eternal Champions is a game that I owned back in the day and I bought it because there weren't a lot of fighting games on the Sega platform back then but I remember this game being so hard with a three button controller in fact this is why I saved up and bought a six button controller I thought it would actually make this game a little bit more playable but no it turns out this game is just really hard to play now beyond the Sega systems all the other ones are going to work just fine as well it is a little bit funny to see something like a Game Boy Game Boy Color playing on a Sega Genesis controller but I also think it's kind of neat to see that as well now Game Boy Advance is a wider aspect ratio it's 3x2 but considering that we have a 4-in screen it still looks nice and big on this display moving over to Home console systems things like Nintendo and Super Nintendo work just great even though yes it still looks a little bit odd to be playing Nintendo IP on a Sega controller one thing of note in the instruction manual it shows you how to change out the different button layouts for Super Nintendo in particular by default the four leftmost buttons are going to be your ab and XY but you can adjust them to be in other positions if it makes more sense to you now another collection of games that work really well with this device are arcade games and there's a couple reasons why this works number one the d-pad itself is kind of loose and soft and as a result it's kind of like a middle ground between a joystick and an actual d-pad and this makes playing arcade games with this d-pad a lot of fun because it's almost like an arcade stick in addition the six button layout games you know things like Killer Instinct and the Capcom games these are all prepped as well so right out of the box you don't have to do any configuration with these settings it's all going to work with the controls perfectly now the unfortunate part is that Killer Instinct does not run at full speed with this chipset and that's just really a limitation of the power on The RK 3566 either way it would have been really cool if we could have played this at full speed now along those same lines of arcade systems Neo Geo also works really well and by default the four Neo buttons are going to be mapped to the leftmost ones but you could always go into retroarch and remap them if you'd like to have it with a different layout either way as expected all these games are going to play just fine next we have Sony PlayStation these games are all going to play perfectly fine there are no games that aren't going to play at full speed with this chip set and so really no surprise here PlayStation 1 is going to be great next we'll talk about Nintendo DS now within Linux even if you use the device that has a touch screen the touchcreen is not going to work so if you want to play Nintendo DS games on the Linux side regardless of so whether or not you have a touch screen you're probably going to want to stick with the games that don't require any touch input at all and it's kind of part for the course when it comes to playing Nintendo DS on these Linux based handhelds now if you get the arcd and can dual boot into Android you will get the touchscreen functionality and it does work here very well and so if you want to play Nintendo d games with a touchscreen input you're going to want to get the Android version and then finally the last system that I wanted to talk about is Sony PSP and unfortunately The RK 3566 chip that's in this device just really isn't up to Snuff when it comes to playing this system there are going to be some lightweight games that'll play absolutely fine at a 1x resolution but as you start working your way up to the harder to emulate games things like Ridge Racer or outrun 2006 these games are just not going to play at full speed so at that point you can turn on frame skip if you'd like but to be honest I would say that PSP is not going to be a system you'll really enjoy on this device in the first place it's always nice to have a couple games here and there as an added bonus but I would definitely not buy this device to play Sony PSP okay and finally as as we start wrapping up one other thing I wanted to show off is the HDMI out functionality and this is very simple you just plug it into the mini HDMI cable and then plug that into your monitor or TV from there you can reboot the device and you're good to go in addition you can pair up Bluetooth controllers with the xinput protocol and there's a couple things you can do once you have it set up like this for example after you've gone into the controller settings and paired your controller if you go into player settings you can actually choose who's going to be which player so in this example I'm going to make the console player one and then I'm going to make my Bluetooth controller player too now as we navigate through and boot up a game as long as it has two player support you should be able to play just right out of the box so this will be great for a couple reasons number one if you wanted to have a multiplayer session you could play like this but then also you could consolized the Amber Nick Arc for example you could use your Bluetooth controller as player one and then play wirelessly directly onto the TV so it's always nice to have an added functionality like this if you choose to use it okay this review is going on way longer than I thought it would be so let's go ahead and start wrapping up and talk about what I like and what I don't like about the amernick arc as always we're going to start with what I like number one this is a super comfortable handheld it's obviously a little bit on the large side but that does give you improved ergonomics and comfort and I think it's well worth it in addition I think we have great controls the d-pad is very close to an original Saturn or Genesis controller and additionally the face buttons are very similar as well now they're both smaller than what we would find in an oem controller but I think it is very much so close enough however if you're looking for a perfect Recreation of Sega Saturn or Sega Genesis controllers this is very close but not quite there the way I'm thinking about it is that I'm very picky about controls but these controls are close enough for me and that's also coming from someone who's a huge Sega fan I also think we have a very nice screen I love the fact that they used a 4in display because it does look nice and big and of course all the other parameters are great it gets nice and bright it has good color accuracy and also is quite saturated I also like the fact that we have HDMI out and Bluetooth which means that you can consolized device if you would like and I'm surprised to say that I think the stock operating system on the Linux side is actually pretty decent all the games booted up with no problem the buttons are preconfigured correctly and some of the high-end performance is a lot better than I was expecting from a stock operating system in fact something like Sega Saturn is probably the best it's going to get on this chipset and we also have some nice Creature Comforts like HDMI out and a working sleep function and finally probably the thing I like the most about this device is that it's surprisingly affordable when I first heard that the Nick Arc was coming out I was expecting about a $125 price point so I was very much surprised to find that this was $25 cheaper than I thought usually am bernick will actually go more expensive than I guess and so I was pleasantly surprised at this price point in fact I'd go as far as to say that these are almost pal Kitty prices and that's very competitive especially given the fact that the build quality on this device is Miles Ahead of anything that comes out from pal Kitty now of course it's not a perfect device so let's talk about some of the things I didn't like about it number one unfortunately Saturn is not at 100% playability but of course I knew that going into it because of the chipset they chose to use now if you're not picky about Sega Saturn I do think it gets pretty close and the majority of games that you want to play will probably be somewhat playable here however I just can't get over the fact that we have something that looks like it's perfectly built for Sega Saturn but it just isn't powerful enough to do so now on the Android side I do have a couple complaints number one there are no Play Store services that means you cannot go and download an app directly from the store instead you'll have to search around the internet for an APK and then sideo it yourself and that is less than ideal and this also will break functionality for many Android games if you try to play them on this device when it comes down to it I'm not really sure that having a $20 price premium to have dual booting into Android is really even going to be worth it after all when we saw in the performance standpoint only Nintendo 64 performed better and the only other thing I can think of is the fact that Nintendo DS does have touch enabled but like I mentioned throughout the video Nintendo 64 really isn't a great fit for this control scheme anyway so really if I was King for a Day I would have all of these be at that 80ish dollar price point and then also we wouldn't have certain colorways hidden behind certain price points and then finally the last point I wanted to make is that I'm not really sure we're going to see any Community Support with the Amber Nick Arc and a lot of that has to do with the fact that amberik has not had a very good relationship with Community developers over the past year even after years and years of requests they still are not sharing source code and as a result the community developers are not able to unlock the device to its full potential and I think we've reached a boiling point where most of these Community developers just don't want to work with amck devices anymore and so while I do think that the stock operating system is still a pretty decent experience I do wish that we had the opportunity to have it even better so if anything I would say to not buy this device if you're expecting to have Community firmware on it sometime in the future but of course we could always be pleasantly surprised sometime down the line so when it comes down to it do I recommend the amberik arc as a device worth buying and of course as always it's really going to come down to you in your use case and I think to best describe it we'll talk about me and my own preferences like I mentioned before when it comes down to it I'm a huge Sega fan the Sega Genesis is one of my favorite systems of all time and there's so many games in this catalog that I have committed to muscle memory and I have to say that playing these Sega systems on this device is just a dream come true for me so I guess the way I see it if you are a big Sega fan and you want to have a somewhat authentic experience for about $100 or less I don't think you're going to find anything better than this one right here I also think it's going to be great for fighting games with that six button layout and I think in general it's just a really comfortable handheld that is really retr focused so in the end yes I do recommend this device if you do think it's going to be a good match for what you want to play and I really appreciate the fact that amernick kind of went out on a limb by making a very Niche device and I was also surprised to find that they basically nailed it from a hardware perspective I've got a couple gripes for example I wish it had a more powerful processor but all the same there are way more things that I like about this device than things that I don't like anyway let me know what you think down in the comments below are you picking this one up and if so why and if not why not as always thank you for watching and be sure to like And subscribe if you found this helpful and we will see you next time happy [Music] gaming

Channel: Retro Game Corps

Views: 136,063

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Id: pvoTk8Og5ag

Length: 43min 29sec (2609 seconds)

Published: Wed Nov 08 2023