I never considered myself the biggest mobile gamer. Sure, I’d jump into a few reliable titles when reviewing a phone, but I just hadn’t found a game that kept me coming back again and again. Or, if I did, I’d play it to death until I hit a paywall, then put it down, never to touch it again.

SO, Pokémon TCG Pocket came along and, like my colleague Nick Fernandez, I was hooked. Not necessarily addicted to the gameplay itself, but to the nostalgia that came with opening packs of Pokémon cards and wanting to catch them all – or, rather, draw them all. It was the same type of nostalgia I remembered feeling every time I came home for the holidays and dusted off my slowly dying GameBoy Advance to play titles from when I was ten years old .

This time, however, it hit me so hard that I wanted to feel more of that feeling, but I wanted to escape the slow, painful demise of my classic handheld. So I did the thing that made the most sense to me: I searched for an Analogue Pocket to relive my gaming glory days. Now, I wish I had done the same, much sooner.

And yes, I hear you screaming at your screen that I should have tried one emulator instead. Of course, that would have been an easier and cheaper way to get my nostalgia fix. I won’t dispute that. However, I will also say that I did try emulator life. I bounced between a few different options hoping that one of them would be like the games I loved as a kid – none did.

Instead, I realized that nostalgia wasn’t just about games for me. It was about sitting down with a dedicated device and separating myself from other social media notifications and email reminders that the holidays are coming up and I should probably buy gifts for friends and family . The nostalgia I was looking for was the ability to moan on the B button while my Poke Ball swung back and forth, trying to catch a Pidgey on my way to Pewter City. This was the ability to blow out a physical cartridge when it had trouble starting (which didn’t happen with the Pocket, fingers crossed). And for that, I needed a FPGA device like the analog pocket.

Now that I have one, I have physical controls almost like the ones I remember – a set of buttons, two triggers and a D-pad – although they’ve all been smoothed out to match the sleek aesthetic of the Pocket. Also, there are four buttons instead of two because the Pocket plays a lot more than the GameBoy cartridges, but you have to get adapters for Game Gear, Atari Lynx, Neo Geo Pocket Color, and TurboGrafx-16 separately. And yes, I have the classic black version of the Analogue Pocket because I wasn’t quick enough to get one of the classic, clear or glow-in-the-dark limited colorways that were discontinued. Believe me, I tried.

Regardless of the cartridge, it runs on a 3.5-inch, 1,600 x 1,440 LCD screen that’s as bright and crisp as I remember from my GameBoy Advance SP. In reality, though, it’s so much brighter and sharper that I don’t have to relive the days when I attached a flashlight to the top of my handheld so I could continue gaming after dark. at night. It doesn’t fade slowly like the TFT screen on my GameBoy Advance SP, and the plastic frame isn’t chipping due to age either.

Still, I don’t think the best part of using the Analogue Pocket comes from the buttons or the screen. This comes from playing the same games I grew up with. Even though many classic titles have been rebuilt as emulators or apps, I’m playing with the same cartridge I unwrapped as a kid on Christmas morning.

Once or twice it even meant going back to a saved game that I hadn’t touched in who knows how long. I loaded up battles I couldn’t skip in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, then quickly breezed through them like I wish I could back then. Did I then restart the game to feel like I deserved this victory? Sure, but I still feel like I’m doing a favor to a younger version of myself.

Oh, and the Analogue Pocket charges via USB-C, so I no longer have to keep track of the annoying, specific charger I needed back in the day.

As you might imagine on a handheld with a slot for the original GameBoy cartridges, the Analogue Pocket doesn’t need Wi-Fi either. I mean, sure, it’s not the case – my GameBoy didn’t have it, and it’s not like Game Freak has released an OTA update to Pokemon Fire Red since launch (Analogue has pushed a few firmware updates to the Pocket in recent years, but they require installation via the microSD slot). However, I didn’t think about the convenience of Games without Wi-Fi until I found myself in a position where Wi-Fi was not readily available: in the middle of the ocean.

Yes, I broke free from the Mid-Atlantic cold for a few days of warmth on a weekend cruise for the OnePlus Offshore event and found myself incredibly happy not to have to rely on Wi-Fi all the time. That’s not to say I didn’t have Wi-Fi: I had it on only one device at a time, which is a significant handicap for a tech reviewer. So when I had to change Wi-Fi connections several times a day, I was very happy to take gaming out of the equation.

This meant that when we were told we wouldn’t be docking in Nassau and that the entire ship would be connected to the same spotty Starlink-powered Wi-Fi network all day, I could still find a way to pass the time without getting worry about a connection drop. The Pocket, of course, also worked wonderfully for my flights to and from the cruise, but I already knew that would be the case.

Fortunately, this lack of Wi-Fi also means that the Analogue Pocket doesn’t experience battery drain in sleep mode. Rather than passively searching for a reliable connection in case it needs to download an update, the Pocket sits there, waiting for you to press its mint green power button and jump back into the action.

Once powered on, you can expect six to ten hours of gameplay before charging the 4,300 mAh battery. For me, that meant filling my pocket the day before my flight home, as I started seeing low battery warnings while training towards the Elite Four in the Kanto region.

Unfortunately, if you forget to charge your Analogue Pocket before a trip, you could find yourself in for a tough time. It’s not very fast, it takes about two hours to fill it with an 18W wall charger or closer to four or five hours with a slower charger you might have on hand. You can continue playing while you charge, but you might not get much extra juice if you play through three hours of flight time.

So far, I’ve just talked about the Analogue Pocket for about 1,000 words, and thought about each one. It’s great for traveling and offers just the right amount of nostalgia without getting bogged down by the ads that often plague mobile games. However, there is one thing that could give some perspective retro gamers pause: The price. Yes, the $220 base price is steep (unless you’re looking for an all-aluminum model that’ll cost you over $500), especially when you could probably buy replacement parts for your current GameBoy and repair it yourself , with a little technical knowledge. -how, but the real cost comes when you have to buy games.

Like most retro items, some GameBoy cartridges have increased in value in recent years. Titles like Pokemon Fire Red (my very first Pokemon game) launched for $40 now cost over $100 and are no guarantee they will work after 20 years of waiting. Other games I really liked, like Avatar: The Last Airbender (don’t judge me) and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, are more accessible, costing between $15 and $25, but the cost can add up quickly . I’m lucky that my parents saved most of my original games from my childhood, but it’s harder to recommend that someone start from scratch if they don’t already have a few games.

And yet, I’m okay with not having unlimited titles at my fingertips. I’m still frustrated with the firebender battles, and I still miss grinding through the levels before challenging the Elite Four, but I’m not about to delete the game or save a few bucks on a microtransaction to overcome every little obstacle. it bothers me. Instead, I need to keep trying new things and spending time in the little pixelated worlds I grew up with. I’d much rather sit and think about a puzzle in a Pokémon gym than watch an ad to earn enough tokens for a power-up, right?