I Was Playing the Anbernic RG Nano All Wrong [Re-Review]

[Music] hey everybody this is Russ from Metro gamecore today we're going to take a second look at this device right here this is the Amber Nick RG Nano now I just reviewed this about a month or so ago and the results were kind of mixed in my review number one I love the fact that it has really nice build quality it just feels really good it's got a nice metal shell to it and the buttons are pretty decent as well in addition I like the software suite that we have in here this is the funky OS so an open source software that just works really well on a small device like this and so because of that I really appreciated just the amount of care and build quality that went inside the device but all the same I did have some drawbacks number one it's a little bit too small for my tastes for example the screen is so small that even though this can play up to PS1 I found that I just don't really like doing that because it's hard to read the text and sometimes it's just too small and the aspect ratio is a little bit weird it squishes things like Game Boy Advance and so it's not a perfect device when it comes to just the overall implementation of it in addition the buttons even though they are nice are really small and so you will accidentally press the wrong button from time to time but in one-handed mode it is pretty good the other thing that threw me off about the RG Nano is the price this thing is 65 before shipping so really about 75 bucks at the end of the day and that's a pretty high price considering the fact that you can find other handhelds at that same price point that are just much more functional and so I had a hard time justifying this device in the face of all those other aspects however over the past month or so I've really kind of figured out the use case for me with the RG Nano and so the paradigms kind of shifted just a little bit and so that's what I wanted to cover in this video I have two different things that I found about the RG Nano after making my review that I want to discuss here and so without any further delay let's go ahead and just Dive Right In [Music] foreign I want to talk about my use case with the RG Nano how I've been enjoying it over the past month or so and like I mentioned my perspective has shifted about it what's interesting is that the device itself wasn't what actually inspired me to kind of change my way of thinking but a different handheld it was this one here the Nintendo Game and Watch and you may have heard of this when it came out a couple years ago but essentially this is a recreation of the original game and watched devices but with some more modern aspects to it for example it has a little clock right here but then in addition it has a couple games inside so this is the Mario version there's a Zelda one as well this one has the original Mario 1 for the NES and then Mario 2 with the Japanese version so the Lost Levels as we call it here in the United States and then also a Game and Watch game called ball and so we have three different options right here and that's kind of the beauty of this thing is that it's essentially a very focused experience you know what you're getting when you buy this thing it's going to play Mario 1 and lost levels and that's really about it but the thing is it's kind of a neat collector's item and I really like the focused approach of having just one game on a console like this very similar to how it was back in the day when you bought a game and watch device or one of those like Tiger Electronics ones now I'm not sure how well this one's sold but all the same I thought it was just kind of a neat collector's item that you could just pick up at Best Buy and the price point on this was what really got me thinking about it because I remember it being about 60 65 retail back then and sure enough that's very similar to the price of the RG Nano now of course the RG Nano can play way more games you could put a thousand games on this thing if you wanted but what really interested me about it is that this could also function like a Game and Watch so for example in the software suite if you're playing in funky OS and you have a game going this is Pokemon Crystal right here all you have to do is just press on the power button Hold It Down For a Moment it'll turn off it'll say shutting down it's going to save exactly where you were now when we push the button again and we start it back up you'll see the little ambernik Logo Pop Up and then it'll take maybe 10 seconds altogether to jump back into your game game and then that's it you're basically right back into it it's kind of like a sleep function but you're actually powering the device down and saving all that battery life and this is a very subtle thing and it's something I really didn't articulate well in my video but this is something that kind of changes the way I think about it if I start thinking about this like a Pokemon Crystal machine all of a sudden I just like it a lot more in fact I play this about 10 times more knowing the fact that the moment I turn it on I don't have a choice it's just going to go directly into Pokemon Crystal so it kind of forces me to enjoy that game just like how it used to be on a Game and Watch or Tiger Electronics device you know exactly what you're getting when you turn it on and so because of that this has really increased my usage a lot now I have found that the games that you will want to play on this will vary so for example Game Boy and Game Boy Color games seem to be the best fit for me those games originally had a 10x9 aspect ratio so pretty close to a square this one is a one by one aspect ratio and so because of that it is a perfect square and it makes sense because these Game Boy Color and game boy games just look the best here in addition because Game Boy and Game Boy Color games were made for a smaller screen the text is larger so it's not going to be like a PlayStation game where it was meant for a television instead these are made for a smaller screen so it's just easier to navigate through everything's just a lot more simple and made for a handheld device and it's a really simple idea to just kind of focus on one game at a time and it's nothing like new and revolutionary but all the same when it comes to the RG Nano I have found that experience to be pretty profound for example I've been playing more Pokemon Crystal on this device than I have in 20 years in fact this is the only Pokemon game I've ever played through a little story time for you when I was home from boot camp after you know going through all that stuff they give you a bunch of time off and so I had like a month to kill and I went home I'm originally from Washington State and I just hung out with my parents and as you can imagine like five days into it I was like over it and so I remember going to Costco and they had a bundle and it was the Game Boy Color it was the purple version and and it had bundled the game the Pokemon Crystal game and so I bought it and I played through that game and it was mostly out of sheer boredom because let's face it I'm just a little bit too old for Pokemon but I kind of didn't have a choice at the time right I only had that one game and so I played through the whole thing I ended up really enjoying that experience but it was a little bit mundane over time all the same I've kind of been recreating that moment just out of nostalgia or whatever and it's kind of fun to be able to jump right back into Pokemon Crystal and honestly I don't even think about other games when I have it set up like this now of course you could do this with many other games if you finally wanted to get through Super Mario Land or maybe Metroid to the return of Samus or even a different Pokemon game or something else like that this is all going to work really well I think Dragon Warrior would be a lot of fun on here Harvest Moon like those are the kind of games I think that would do really well on here and the thing is you have the option of picking thousands of different games that you could play one at a time in that entire setup if you remember with the game and watch you only get one game and that's going to be Super Mario Brothers and will Mario 2 as well but you get my point you're paying the same price for this thing to be able to get you know just one game now of course you can also play that game on here and let's be kind of honest it's a lot more fun to play on this thing just because it's comfortable but all the same one-handed gameplay with this with role-playing games is really not all that bad and so now that I have the device and I've had it for a month treating it in a very simple way where I'm basically forcing myself to enjoy it actually comes out with a net benefit in the fact that yeah I end up really enjoying this thing and that kind of leads into these second points let's jump into that one now I spent a lot of time kind of thinking through how I wanted to describe this next moment and this is what I came up with the RG Nano is inconsequentially small I'm not trying to use a big word here but what I'm trying to convey is the fact that this thing is so small that it doesn't really make a difference whether or not you carry it with you it's not something like any other handheld where you put it in your pocket and you think to yourself oh yeah I've got this handheld in my pocket I better pull it out and play it because it is taking up room in my pocket here this thing is so small that I don't really care either way instead it's kind of dictated by the moment that I'm in so for example if we're going to like the mall or whatever and you know my wife wants to go and look at some clothes and I've got nothing else to look at I've got a choice I can pull out my foam and you know maybe check something or I can pull out this thing because it's already in my pocket it's so small that you don't notice it when you don't want to but when it comes to that moment where you could use it it's already there and so I really like that idea and so I found that just the overall size of it yes it is a drawback in the sense that it's not the most fun game to play like I wouldn't want to hold it like this and try to play through like a Mario game but all the same you know one-handed RPGs is really great and it's so small I can just throw it in my pocket in fact Bob wolf did a really great thing in his video where he showed that it actually fits in the small inner pocket of your pants and so that's really how small it is he also put it in his mouth I'm not going to do that but at the same time it really just shows that this thing is kind of inconsequential in the fact that it doesn't matter if you put in your pocket or not it's gonna fit Now by comparison there are definitely smaller handhelds out there that are going to be easier to actually play for example the original Mio mini is a perfect use case this one also fits in your pocket no problem and it's a lot more comfortable to actually use this is something that where you can play PlayStation 1 games and it's a really enjoyable experience and it's small enough that you can still play it one-handed there are a couple problems with that though number one this is an exceedingly fragile handheld and they no longer make it I mean they're dropping them every once in a while but even then you have to be able to buy it in like the first 10 seconds that it drops and so it's not very practical to be able to grab a Mio mini right now either way the point is that this thing is kind of fragile and hard to find and so I'm really nervous about putting it in my pocket instead I want to put a case over it which is going to add bulk to it and then all of a sudden when I do put in my pocket it is certainly noticeable in fact it is much bigger than you might expect and so as a result yes this is a small handheld and one I would rather play but one that I have to be very deliberate when I actually choose to take it out of the house number one I have to make sure it's protected but then number two where am I going to put it because it really takes up a lot of space in my pocket with the RG Nano it's a different experience after all this thing is so small that it's about the size of my key fob for my car and that's something I always have in my pocket and so I found that regardless of whether or not I'm actually going to plan on using it I can just grab this and it's of no consequence one way or the other and so much like with the way I've been using the RG Nano and then I've been keeping it very simple the size of it as well is not some sort of new profound thought but all the same it's just been really helpful for me to kind of think of it as something that's just kind of throw away you know I can throw in my pocket it's an easy device to find it so you can replace it if you happen to break it unlike the Mio mini and on top of that it's just so simple like I can jump right into Pokemon Crystal right here now of course in insert whatever game you plan on playing but all the same I really just kind of enjoy that concept on top of that the other thing I found is because it's such a simple setup it's going to work really well for a child so really they can't break this concept they basically can start it up play the game hold on to the power button to close it down now they could if they tap on the power button and they go through the menus here they could adjust and you know exit out of the game and find other games and stuff but it's not something that's very intuitive instead it's just one of those things where you turn it on play it and then turn it off and I think that's going to be perfect for children and the other benefit is this is a pretty good fit for little kids as well because it's nice and rugged but then also because the controls are so small it might work with their little fingers just a little bit better now one other minor thing worth mentioning is the battery life on this device it lasts about two three hours altogether depending on what you're playing but honestly I've never sat down and played this thing for two hours it's only a few minutes here and there but what I found is when I use it in the way that I do and then I turn it off when I don't need it jump right back into my game when I do I found that the battery lasts forever I can basically charge this every couple weeks when I feel like it and it's going to be ready to go at any time and so that's probably one of the other big draws for this as well is the fact that I can just kind of charge this when I want to and it always will be there and ready for me when I need it hey real quick this is next day Russ and I forgot to mention there are software updates coming for the RG Nano in fact ambernick has already released their own software update last week which will improve 60 hertz gameplay in some emulators also I've heard there are two different custom firmwares in the works and so that might be pretty exciting as well I'm hoping that one of them will have a fast forward function within the funky Os or whatever OS they use because that's something that I really have been hoping to use with Pokemon games and really I think that's about it for this video here those are the two concepts I wanted to go over number one just how simple you can actually make it if you treat it like a single game device and then number two the fact that it's so small that you can kind of take it everywhere and as a result you end up using it more than you might think you would it now let's be perfectly honest it's not a super enjoyable experience to play the RG Nano the controls are small the screen's a little bit squinty but all the same it's a little bit better than like staring at a wall depending on what situation you're in and so I found myself being more thankful when I have the RG Nano in my pocket than like thinking to myself oh man what am I going to do with this thing instead I just kind of carry it around and the opportunity presents itself naturally anyway let me know what you think in the comments below I still don't really think this is a device I can recommend to anyone just because it's so small and it's a bit of a novelty but all the same if you do end up picking one up I'd love to hear what you're using it for Down Below in the comments are you treating it like I am where it's just like a single game device or do you like the idea of having a thousand games on a device like this that you can kind of navigate through and test out either way I'd love to hear your use case down below as always thank you for watching be sure to like And subscribe if you found this helpful we'll see you next time happy gaming [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: Retro Game Corps

Views: 135,278

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Id: kVQpDR8s6oc

Length: 14min 7sec (847 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 30 2023