posted: 2025-09-07
Spoilers for Kirby & the Amazing Mirror
On the Anbernic RG35XXSP, RetroArch and RetroAchievements
I recently obtained an Anbernic RG35XXSP because I grew weary of having a giant mound of retro games I’d like to try out. Yes, I own a MiSTer FPGa and I love it very much. Yes, I own a Steam Deck and I love it very much. Yes, I own a Gameboy Advance SP and I love it very much. Yes, I own multiple Nintendo 3DS consoles and I love them all very much. Yes, I have a dedicated gaming PC and I love it very much. Yes, I could have swept away this mound of ever growing games on the Gameboy I’d like to play with any of these systems. Yet, I bought an Anbernic at the recommendation of my good friend Exclamatia, because I cannot be satisfied with the ways I play games. This is hyperbole, sure, but there’s something unique about being able to whip out a tiny little portable console while waiting at my gate at the Des Moines airport to play a round of Puyo Puyo via Kirby’s Avalanche. I can’t do that with a MiSter, the Steam Deck is a little too big to travel, my GBA and 3DS systems all have a certain level of fragility rooted in sentimentality (would rather not lose the consoles somewhere by accident, damage them, etc.), and my PC stays in the “Weeb Room”. So for fifty dollars, an Anbernic RG35XXSP presents a new method of portable gaming, through which I can try out some of the entries on the “DocHardware Good Gameboy Games” list 1, among others.
Shoutsouts to Game&Burger for the sticker btw.
The Anbernic uses RetroArch as its primary means of emulating games. Amusingly, it also includes a depreciated emulation system on its homescreen as well, meaning that if a player were to boot up the system and immediately navigate the front page they’d have two different emulation mechanisms to consider. I, being that player who received his Anbernic in the mail the day before I flew away for an extended retreat, made this error and booted up games in the older emulation architecture rather than the RetroArch system, which led to an experience that was an acceptable, albeit disappointing emulation experience. The audio had a noticeable lag and some consoles flat out did not maintain save files between play sessions. I tolerated this on my trip, but made sure to install the modded Stock OS upon returning home. In doing so, I made sure to prioritize the RetroArch architecture going forward.
I am not a RetroArch maniac. I do not make sure that I have all my emulators wrapped in it sothat I can havbe a uniform play experience or whatever. I recognize its convenience in managing many different emulation cores, ROM and ISO files, and setting up various quality of life and experience processes. Still, I value my ability to do things manually, and to tinker with the systems of each emulator on their own whenever possible. Of course, on the Anbernic, this is not a simple task, and, frankly, I’m not looking for anything beyond simplicity here. So in this case, I can bite the bullet and accept RetroArch for what it is. It’s hardly an antagonistic program, it’s just a means of making emulation more approachable to those who didn’t spend their teenage years downloading video games from coolrom.com or emuparadise. I do not champion RetroArch, but I do not mind it either.
The sidebars can be nice in some cases. Other times I find them distracting. This is one of the ones wehere I think they add to the experience of playing Cave Noire. By the way, you should try out Cave Noire.
Yes, this photo was taken in my car, while I was behind the wheel, why do you ask?
RetroArch has “Retro Achievements” support. That is, there is a website, “RetroAchievements”, that is able to track your gaming and provide “achievements” in the same way modern consoles and gaming platforms do to offer a new way of approaching “retro games” 2. These achievements are populated by community members and vary tremendously in quantity and quality between games. Do not attempt to “full clear” Mother 3 while adhering to the Retro Achievements page, you will lose your mind. I know this because I happen to know someone who takes achievements as gospel, who doesn’t care for Mother 3. She will play through every game on her “backlog” with the intention of obtaining every single achievement before moving onto the next game. With all due respect to her, I’ve found this mindset misguided. She approaches these games as a checklist of guided tasks rather than an opportunity to experience a set of rules without an immediate pass/fail system. I am not better than her, but I cannot make heads or tails of her approach to this hobby.When I play a game, I want my sense of accomplishments to come from an intrinsic appreciation for a game, rather than an extrinsic system awarding me little pop-up alerts whenever I do a given minor task in the game. Still, RetroAchivements does also have some rather convenient pros. For one, it is a very frictionless method of recoding general progress through a game. I am a big fan of how it can keep track of exactly how long it might take to clear a game. I like being able to look at how long it takes me to beat a game and use it as another data point to characterize my gaming experience through numbers 3.
If it wasn’t clear, I made a RetroAchievements account, and tested it out by replaying Kirby & the Amazing Mirror. I know the game like the back of my hand, and can beat it in a single sitting if I “lock in”. I didn’t bother looking at the full list of achievements before playing to allow myself to be surprised when accomplishing a given challenge. Or at least, I thought they would be a challenge. Instead, the moment I inhaled a Cupie enemy and got the “Cupid” copy ability, a pop-up in the top right of the screen alerted me that I had obtained an achievement. I obtained an achievement for acquiring a Copy ability- for using one of the game’s primary mechanics. This held true when I then grabbed the “Burning” copy ability later in the room.
These aren't achievements, they're tasks.
I understand that these copy abilities are imposed by members of the community and are designed to feel like little treats for the player, but I find these accomplishments trivial. I already get the brain’s happy chemical diffusion from getting and using a copy ability. A dopamine amplification process means very little to me when I can collect each of these achievements in the “Copy Ability room” just by jumping around. I grant that opening the Copy Ability Room requires obtaining access to every “checkpoint” mirror, which itself is not a trivial process, but this process also yields an achievement.
I am not motivated by these RetroAchievements. At most, I intend to leave it on so that I can have a general “scrapbook” of progression that is tracked in a very passive manner. I appreciate that the system can keep track of how long it takes me to clear a game, but I’m not going to develop a sense of self worth around my ability to obtain trivial little .pngs. I think these achievements are a fun opt-in option that can provide a surprise upon “doing something” in the game. But, unlike my friend, I do not intend to check off every box; games are not fun when they are “To-Do lists”.
To be honest, beating the final Boss using the UFO Copy Ability is far more of an interesting achievement.
In a parallel sense, the act of playing games is not fun when they themselves are seen as items of a To-Do list in a macroscopic sense. As I acquire all of these different systems to play through all these different games that I supposedly “want to play”, I have brushed upon the difficult question of “Why”? Why do I want to play these games? Am I playing these games for the sake of “doing my due diligence”? Am I playing these games because “I really should have by now”? Do I even need an answer to this question beyond “I just feel like it”? Regardless of the answers to these questions, I have found that my act of having this hobby once again appears to fall into the chasm of consumerism. I am just as concerned with acquiring and managing these games as I am actually playing them. There’s a balance to this process, I am allowed to let myself curate my spaces of where and how I play the games I own and have amassed. I also have to practice avoiding the idea of transactional thinking. I do enjoy my time organizing my games as much as I enjoy playing them, and I shouldn’t let myself feel bad for feeling this way. The last thing I want to do is view my hobby as an exchange of time. I play a lot of games, more than some, less than others, and I am alright with that. I am alright with the nights I spend tinkering with my various systems that I will eventually use to play all of these games. As long as I can then make time to actually play through these games, I will be quite pleased with myself.
. I’ve started playing Terranigma on the Anbernic, and it’s been an excellent fit. The pacing of Terranigma is perfect for the kind of short-term bursts that work with an Anbernic. For one, it’s been excellent for airplane rides. It’s been quite fun to pop open my little machine and play throuigh the towers in the first Chapter of Terranigma as I wait for my delayed flight to finally take off. I love my MiSTer, but it’s not possible to do that with it. Yeah, I could’ve bought an FPGA-based handheld, but consider, $200+, or 50 bucks? You don’t have to sell me on FPGA-based emulation, I love it. But the Anbernic presents a new, and exciting way I can further pursue my hobby. I’m glad I was able to pick one up, I expect to use it a bunch going forward.
Here are some other games that have made for great fits on the Anbernic so far:
I also anticipate playing some games including Final Fantasy V,and Legend of the River King, among others soon.
For as much as my hobby of playing games is about actually playing video games, it’s also about how I play these games. I have become a person who prefers to play SNES RPGs on a handheld system rather than on a television. I have become a person who prefers to play PC games on my Steam Deck on a television than at his computer. I have become a person who would rather play a previously console-exclusive platformer on my PC for the sake of system response. I am a walking bag of contradictions. I say I don’t have a “To Do List” of games, and yet, I have a “a giant mound of retro games I’d like to try out”. I spend so much time dedicated towards developing the tools to “clean up this mound”, that I need to remind myself of the actual process of “cleaning up the mound”. I view my hobby as a set of transient experiences. I will know when and where I was when I spent the time with a game and a system. I can only hope that these tools that I have been acquiring, gathering, tinkering with, and eventually using, will last for as long as I need them and serve me under all the circumstances I require.
Until then, there are games to play.
Oh, you know, the Footnotes
Maybe I’ll make a page on here with that list at some point. DocHardware posted the list in a Discord Server one day and I snagged it and stashed it in my Obsidian. you can actually find it online if you know where to look.↩︎
And in the process hurts my soul to know Gameboy Advance games are not only retro, but retro by a considerable margin.↩︎
Despite the general folly that this practice can often be.↩︎