Blaze Entertainment has revealed its Evercade line of consoles is growing, along with new accessories and Giga Carts.
A whole new game
Evercade is growing again. Blaze Entertainment’s line of retro consoles is about to usher in another new era, as the publisher continues to reinvent and refine its collection. This time it’ll be with an added ‘R’, as both the home console VS-R and portable EXP-R have both been revealed.
Aside from the color shift from white to charcoal, these are somewhat the same units that are available now, though they’re not identical. The VS-R will improve on the VS with a built in TATE mode, meaning that you’ll be able to natively play games that support vertically scrolling play. The only caveat of course, is that your physical setup will have to support it. Though if you have a modern gaming monitor on your desktop, that’s a fairly simple proposition. As for the EXP-R, that will have a comfort grip on the backside, and does cut a few features to drop the costs.
The EXP-R will be losing the EXP‘s HDMI out, as it makes the leap to being a purely handheld option. It also doesn’t sport the formerly-included digital collection of Capcom games, as the licensing deal has expired. As mentioned though, those exclusions do cut costs, with the price tags on both consoles now being a cool $99.99 USD. And while the EXP-R is leaving Capcom titles out, it will come bundled with a new Giga Cart, just like the VS-R (and it’ll be the same one).
Also very much worth noting, is that the older set of hardware options will be phased out as of right now. So if you want one of those, you might want to hop over to your favorite shop and grab one while the grabbing’s good.
Giga-sized fun
Still with us? Okay, as for those Giga Carts, basically you can think of them being a standard Evercade cartridge on steroids. Playable on any Evercade unit, Giga Carts will feature an upgraded internal capability, and will thusly be able to hold larger games.
How much larger? Think of stuff that was originally released on CD, like the recently leaked… uh, actually we probably shouldn’t cover that here, since this release didn’t mention it. Blaze hasn’t officially announced said title just yet you see, though you can honestly find out what it is fairly easily.
We’ll leave it at that.
Getting back to the info at hand, Giga Carts will have a slightly higher price point to go along with those shiny new classics. While the standard games go for $19.99 USD, Giga Carts will be priced at $24.99. Not a huge difference for sure, and it certainly seems as though the boost in games will warrant it.
While we’re talking about games too, there’s a new EXP peripheral on the way to use with them. Well, with some of them anyway, as it will allow for much easier and more comfortable TATE mode play, while on the go. Coming in the form of a clip-on grip, the Evercade TATE Grip will slide right on to the bottom of the EXP or EXP-R, making hands a little less crampy during extended sessions. And running at just $19.99 USD, it seems like kind of a no-brainer for those who love traveling with their vertical shooters.
As for release dates on all of the above, fans can look to be able to get it all in-home by July. Look for pre-orders to post much sooner than that though, with an April 30th, 2024 date attached.