The Possibilities: Evercade
Videogames have changed a lot over the more than three decades that I’ve been playing them. In some aspects the hobby has improved, where as in other ways it’s developed irksome quirks.
Consoles today are more capable than ever, but with those capabilities the ‘gaming experience’, the qualia of it to be fanciful, has been contaminated—without wanting to sound too dramatic.
It used to be that putting a cartridge into a slot or a disk into a tray was about as many obstacles as you had to surmount before you were playing a game. Where far too many games are concerned today you’ll be lucky if you don’t have to wait half an hour or so for an ‘initial download’ to start your game (I thought that’s what I bought the game for in the first place). And what about that ‘user interface’ before you even get to a download, you know, the one that looks like there was an explosion at the world’s dullest advertising agency. A connection to the internet means that even if your friends at school, college or work, siblings, parents or children don’t share you enthusiasm for Phantasy Star Online, it doesn’t matter because there’s a whole host of people around the world that do; have fun with them. Then again, feel like playing story mode, better make sure you’ve got a good connection because this one’s ‘always online’, even if it is a single-player game.
There are plenty more problems that have come about with ‘modern gaming’, and while they haven’t ruined games (yet), is this really the progress that we were all looking forward to when games made the jump from one technological advancement to another?
This isn’t an article about my gripes with games today, I assure, rather it’s a lengthy preamble to something a little more hopeful: the Evercade.
For those of you who aren’t aware, the Evercade is a wallet-friendly games system that offers collections of older games on cartridges. Yes, games on cartridges, and with manuals no less—slight manuals but they’re better than nothing. It started as a simple handheld that has since seen a home console release (complete with 4 USB-controller ports) called the Evercade VS and a revamped handheld called the Evercade EXP. At first there were 10 cartridges from Atari, Interplay, Namco and the like; from 8 to 16-bit, and in 2022 we’ve moved on to a few 32-bit titles and new cartridge collections for both arcade games and home computers. It’s a great machine, and it’s effectively the forth console brand that nobody thinks of in a conversation about Nintendo, Playstation and Microsoft, like the first notch in a belt. It’s understandable, Blaze isn’t trying to compete with the titans of videogames today, and why would they? Evercade has a particular niche that seems to be going over quite well with gamers. If you want to own the games you buy, thumb through a page or two of a manual, and then enjoy some old favourites (or maybe discover new ones) then the Evercade does just that. It gives games that people have probably missed a second-go-round, and games that were all but impossible to own at home – like the Evercade’s arcade collections – a spot on gamers’ shelves.
But with all that said, it is interesting to think about what might be in the minds of the people at Blaze for the future of the system. We have another Evercade showcase dedicated to indie titles coming in July of this year, and we know that there are a total of 6 unannounced cartridges to be revealed this year too, but I’m thinking about further ahead than that. The expansion of the Evercade has happened at a pace that would make the Road Runner jealous, so what might things look like 2,3 or 5 years into the future?
One thing that Blaze could, and in my opinion should do is release a new duo of home and handheld consoles. The VS has done exactly what it needs to as a home-alternative to the Evercade, and the EXP is easily the version of the handheld with should have gotten the first time around. But the power we’re playing with on these two is a little limited at the minute. It’s important that Blaze keeps the budget nature of the Evercade in mind with any future new hardware since it’s one of the system’s biggest selling points, so this isn’t something that I think should happen in the immediate future, but it just keeps getting cheaper to emulate higher powered consoles. If we get to a point were it’s cost-permitting to see full 32 and even 64-bit and higher emulation on a future Evercade console, while not being hampered by the size of disk-based games (remember that Evercade is cartridge-based at the moment), then the library of possible games, both old and indie, that the Evercade can draw from would skyrocket. That’s not to mention the possibilities for some of those ultra expensive Saturn and Playstation games being re-released: I’m looking at you Tron Bonne and Deep Fear.
If you think about it the possibilities for an expanded and hopefully backwards compatible Evercade console would be exciting. Not only do we have all those games, but one of its strongest points is that the Evercade in some sense the de facto home of indie games ‘in the plastic’ as it were. Sure there’s no doubt that there are ridiculously more indie games available on the multitude of digital stores that game publishers have nowadays, but the Evercade has provided a way for people to experience these games in much the way you would ‘proper’ releases: on physical media. The chance to bring some of the more demanding indie titles to a powered-up Evecade console would be great. To have these possible games sans the day-one updates, digital-only media and the unpleasant tang of downloadable content that you suspect could have been in the game at launch, or costs the price of the game all over again, is certainly a prospect I’d be up for.
Blaze hasn’t been left unsullied by any of these problems though; there was Roniu’s Tale, an indie game that was released as a demo before an update gave us access to the full game. Then there was the digital-only Capcom collection that shipped with the EXP. These weren’t great, but at least it looks like Blaze has only turned to such practices as acts of last resort, and even reaffirmed they commitment to physical games after announcing the Capcom collection. We can hope these strategies persist at Blaze but only time will tell.
None of this will happen anytime soon I don’t think, if it happens at all. It’s fun to think though, what else could we see in what might be an ever expanding Evercade future.
