Title: Technos Super Pocket
Price: $59.99
Release Date: October 2024
Prelude
I felt the Taito Super Pocket review would be a one and done, with me picking up a pocket of choice and just planning to stick with it for the future, but over time questionable things happened to my cartridges, (most of my cart bricks stemmed after using them in the Taito pocket for a while) and then more Super Pockets got announced, each with their own lineup of games to point we went from two to six of them as of the time I’m writing this review.
I originally didn’t have much interest in buying a second one, but local business support, the fear of impending tariffs making all of these pretty expensive, and me getting pretty intrigued by easy pick up and play for a few games on this particular unit led me to going with the Technos Super Pocket for my second choice. Yes, the company behind the rarest Evercade cart that currently exists made their own Super Pocket, and it’s gone just as unloved and under the radar as that cartridge did.
Will this end up being hyper rare down the line, and was this unit of hardware thrown under the radar due to having lackluster games, or is this a Super Pocket that might end up as the weakest of the six due to brand recognition? Being a guy who digs Technos stuff, I decided to give this one a whirl and see how it’d work in lieu of my usual Taito edition…
Presentation
Right away, the Technos Super Pocket just looks way nicer than the Taito one due to a better color scheme. Blue and white go together way better than green and black, and it just looks really darn good in person. The buttons and front part of the unit are a lovely shade of blue, while the rest of the system is a pure, lovely white that fits perfectly with the color of typical Evercade cartridges.
Yes, that means if you were a picky person who wanted a blank white Evercade cartridge for so long, this one will give you a perfect means of getting one, since the dummy cart in the super pocket by default happens to be the same color as a normal Evercade cartridge. Pretty cool! It also means putting in any Evercade cart won’t make it stand out as much as on the other Super Pockets, though I wasn’t all that bothered by the mismatch on my Taito one. I had other concerns which I’ll get to in a bit regarding cartridges.
So, how does the Super Pocket look and sound? Well just like the Taito one, you have a well lit screen with a pretty decent display, although still with no option to adjust brightness in any way, shape or form. Still a bit of an annoyance for me if I wanna play this late at night, and I hope that can get fixed somehow in a firmware update or future revision.
The speaker itself is still rather loud, making it pretty easy for most games in the Evercade library to be heard with ease, although that also makes things that are naturally loud like certain Arcade titles even louder than you’d expect them to be, so keeping them on a low volume is a good idea. Unfortunately, that also means there are moments where turning down the volume one more notch completely mutes it, while keeping it at one notch above still makes some things a bit too loud to enjoy in public, so I also wished that they fixed or added more volume levels to make this a bit more tolerable. One of the games in this very super pocket is notorious for being naturally loud, so I was honestly a little surprised they didn’t think to expand the volume options because of it.
Thankfully, the screen size options are still pretty good, and most things I threw at this super pocket looked just as good as they did on the other one. All the console games, the computer games, and especially the Arcade games can look crisp with a certain screen size enabled, although that does unfortunately mean Vertical Arcade games still look a little awkward on this thing, but with only two vertical games to deal with this time around it’s not as noticeable as on the Taito edition unless you use Arcade cartridges.
Speaking of that old edition, I noted in my prior review how both Cathedral and Future Wars did not function on Super Pocket. Well, they both work on this one from the getgo and an update made them work on the Taito one as well, so hey, Cathedral on the go in a smaller form factor might just be tempting for you. Otherwise most of what I noted in the prior review applies here, but with a new batch of games.
Gameplay
Shifting companies and jumping a year ahead into the future, the Technos Pocket might be a device you’d hope would have some extra differences compared to the Taito one, outside of the game selection. Alas, the D-Pad still has the same faults as last time, (takes some time to get used to, no central pivot makes diagonal heavy games incredibly tough to get into, etc) and the shoulder buttons might feel a little awkward for certain titles. I can also report that unfortunately, the center of the D-Pad still acts like a button press in certain games, meaning if you decide to play The Chaos Engine be prepared to pause constantly.
Ultimately, what shakes up the Technos Pocket compared to the Taito one is the color scheme of the unit, (which I consider vastly superior here) and the game library, which I can best describe as a grab bag of Technos Collection 1 and Technos Arcade 1. This is a great thing, since both carts are discontinued and the console collection in particular is absurdly rare.
However, not every game from the two sets are included. On the Arcade end, you’re only missing out on Mania Challenge and Battle Lane, both of which were the weakest titles in Technos Arcade to begin with. It ends up being the Console collection that gets more neglect, with the home versions of Double Dragon II, Renegade, and Super Dodge Ball being left out in favor of their arcade versions. Super Dodge Ball NES and especially NES DDII were outstanding, so it’s a shame to not see both versions of those included for people to compare.
Yes, there are exclusive games to this Super Pocket that weren’t on either collection. The only version of Double Dragon 1 available on Evercade was the poor NES one, but now you have the original Arcade version with less slowdown, along with the excellent Game Boy rendition, which removes the dumb EXP system from the NES version and keeps in a lot of ideas from that port while also refining the level design to be more enjoyable. That GB version is a solid pick for the Super Pocket’s form factor, and I had a lot of fun revisiting it here, so it was nice to have 3 versions of Double Dragon to compare.
For the other exclusives, you have the Arcade versions of Super Dodge Ball and Renegade I mentioned earlier, both of which are well emulated and play great on the Super Pocket. Unfortunately, arcade Super Dodge Ball is vastly inferior to the NES version and likes to pummel you with typical quarter munching difficulty and a cheating AI, so I’d have preferred the NES version in this case. While I have a soft spot for NES Renegade, Arcade Renegade is still the superior version, and I had a lot of fun revisiting it here.
There are still a few oddball choices with the lineup, though. Why 3 versions of the first Double Dragon, yet not NES Double Dragon II or III? Why not the GB game titled Double Dragon II, which is a weird adaptation of a Kunio game? Why not the Arcade Version of V Ball, if we’re replacing most of the NES ports with their arcade counterparts anyhow? It feels a little haphazard, and as a result the device is very belt scroller heavy. You do get a great puzzle gem with Block Out if you want a much needed change of pace, though.
Still, great emulation and decent controls lead to this being a fun way to play the included games if you happen to consider them a favorite. It may feel a little weird to play all these games solo, especially Arcade Double Dragon, but I still had a lot more fun than I expected replaying most of these despite having both Technos carts to go through.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the Technos Super Pocket is a fun little device for Technos fans. It comes with a decent little assortment of games, with only NES Double Dragon II being the game I’d call a critical absence, and if you’re a big fan of brawlers then this one is an absolute no brainer. If you want more variety from your super pockets however, then this is by far the least appealing of the six, since there’s barely any genre variety here.
I also think it really sucks the D-Pad issues from last time haven’t been fixed, and while it still can be a D-Pad to adjust to and get tons of fun out of, (especially if you combine it with Evercade cartridges) I ultimately think the Taito and Atari models are better as a general starting point for the lineup, or the upcoming Data East one.
I give the Technos Super Pocket a 6 out of 10.