It’s fair to say I’m predisposed to Evercade. I grew up in gaming’s golden age. Everyone says that, of course. But I’m right because my era was packed full of pioneering arcade games and 8- and 16-bit classics, before Sony came along and ruined everything with the PlayStation.
Back then, you even owned your games. Imagine! Lately, Sony (among others) has ruined that too, arguing that only massive idiots don’t realise their digital purchases aren’t theirs to own forever. Blaze has long been fighting the good fight against such hideousness by way of its Evercade line. This ecosystem is so retro that the games come on cartridges with colour manuals in the box.
Blaze hasn’t been shy about experimenting with form factors either. We’ve had Evercade handhelds, TV consoles, bartop arcades and Game Boy-ish Super Pockets. Now there’s the Evercade Nexus, and the brief appears to have been ‘bigger is better’. Which it turns out it is. And also isn’t.
Screen time
A widespread grumble about the EXP-R, Blaze’s most recent ‘candy bar’ console, was its smallish 4.3in 800×480 screen. The Nexus is apparently aimed at people who are ‘reading glasses’ years old, as I imagine many Evercade fans are. Oddly, though, its 5.89in display doesn’t keep pace in terms of pixel count, only nudging things up to 840×512. Do the maths and you’ll find pixel density has dropped from 217ppi (iMac territory) to 167ppi (similar to the original iPhone).
That worried me when the specs first landed. But the screen is bright and rich in colour, and the games Evercades play aren’t exactly fine-detail showpieces. So bigger really is better here, notably with games like turn-based effort Roguecraft DX, where the larger display made me less likely to blunder into certain doom. That said, I wouldn’t have said no to more shader options to better deal with non-integer scaling. Also, the screen in my sample unit sits slightly oddly, because when I hold the Nexus dead vertical in front of my eyes, a couple of pixels vanish under the bezel. Hmm.
It’s not just the screen that’s bigger, though: audio has been beefed up, with dual forward-firing speakers. And Blaze (fortunately) hasn’t yet found the Apple-level ‘courage’ required to ditch the headphone port. If you hate wires, though, Bluetooth works too.
The joy of sticks
The other big change with the Nexus is the addition of dual thumbsticks. This signals a shift from the platform’s roots and hints that we’ll increasingly see more titles from the 1990s that can utilise this setup. For now, the Nexus comes bundled with an optimised Banjo-Kazooie, and a Doom cart is on the way. Some other titles have initial support, although not all – no twin-stick shooty goodness for Xeno Crisis yet, alas. The revised controls also improve the Nexus’s TATE (portrait) mode credentials. Instead of the EXP-R’s awkward extra buttons specifically for that mode, you just play with the right thumbstick and A/B/X/Y.
Where things somewhat come unstuck is that bigger isn’t always better. And this console has serious heft. It looks like it could crush a Switch if it took a mind to. It’s colossal next to my Retroid Pocket 6 and makes my review unit iPhone 18 Pro Max look dainty.
That bulk brings problems. The size veers into comedy pockets territory if you’re going to cart the thing around in your trousers. And then there’s the thorny issue of comfort.
I found the thumbsticks sit too far down the body to work optimally alongside the triggers. I sometimes ended up gripping the Nexus tensely, rather than in relaxed fashion, especially when wrangling Banjo. Doom was much better, though – well, right up until I got horribly murdered while trying to take a photo for this very column. Happily, the controls are at least all responsive, although the triggers remain loud enough to wake the dead. That’s one thing that should have been left behind with the EXP-R.
Fine details
It’s an odd one. The Evercade Nexus is clearly a labour of love, and it’s good to see Blaze reach beyond old farts like me who got all grumpy when games went fully 3D. And there’s great attention to detail dotted around. For example, I vehemently dislike obnoxious logos on hardware, and the Nexus has a big one that glows bright red in retina-searing fashion. But it doubles as a charging indicator and you can dim it to zero, separately in menus and while playing games.
TATE mode remains a crown jewel too. You can fudge other handhelds into portrait, but the Nexus – like the EXP-R before it – has a single button that instantly reconfigures everything. And here the extra heft actually helps: I found balance and control placement in portrait felt a lot better than on the EXP-R, even if I still had to wriggle now and then to stop a trigger jabbing the squidgy bits of my right hand.
There’s also a local multiplayer option, although both players need a Nexus and I only had one, so couldn’t try it. Still, at least that meant I didn’t have to try and find a friend, eh?
Retro game: ARGH?
Every bit of hardware is a compromise and the Nexus is no exception. It takes a couple of steps forward, but occasionally blunders sideways into an angry chicken, just like my hero in Roguecraft DX. So I’m conflicted. I’m glad the Nexus exists and that Blaze is taking risks and widening its catalogue. But this handheld also feels a bit like it ended up on the wrong side of chunky.
That’s not to say I don’t like it – there are more hits than misses. And you may gravitate towards a Nexus if you’ve suitably sized paws and/or love the Evercade ecosystem but are less enamoured by small screens. But what I’d really love to see is a Nexus Slim. Given how Blaze cranks out new hardware, maybe I’ll get one eventually. And if not, no worries. There are loads of other Evercade devices to try.
Thanks to Blaze Entertainment for sending over a sample for this column. The Evercade Nexus releases on 30 October 2026 for $199.99/£169.99. Pre-order here.
