Handheld emulation is one of my favourite ways to play retro video games. The RG351 promises to be a retro emulation handheld powerhouse. But how does the rg351p stack up against other options like the Pocket Go and even your mobile phone?
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RG351 Retro Handheld Emulation
Having used a Pocket Go in the past, my mobile phone, a Raspberry Pi and my laptop for retro emulation. I feel I’ve got a good grasp of being able to compare the RG351P to other options out there. Previously we’ve discussed how your mobile phone was the best way to play retro video games handheld. However at that point I hadn’t gotten my hands on an RG351 retro handheld to compare to.
I now do have an RG351 and I’ve been using it for the past three weeks pretty much every single day. So let’s find out how this compares to my mobile phone and all the other options for emulating retro video games in handheld mode.
RG351P Handheld Quality
When I took the RG351p out of the box the first thing I noted was how solid it felt as a design. It’s made out of nice solid durable plastic with a nice matte finish as well. I went for the black option and I think in black it looks really striking. Instantly this gave me a feel of a more premium product not some cheap small little emulation system. This feels like something you wouldn’t be surprised that one of the big names could bring out. For example if Sony were to do a PSP Classic I would be happy if it had this design quality. One of the reasons that makes me say that is because of the buttons and the button layout.
First of all the buttons and the d-pad, the main buttons and the start and select all have a wonderful clickiness to it. That nice feel you expect from a good game controller. The next thing I was really nicely surprised by were the analogue sticks. These analogue sticks feel premium and solid and honestly if we exclude the Nintendo Switch, I think these are the best analogue sticks I’ve ever felt on a handheld console.
You see the PSP the Playstation Vita and even the Nintendo 3DS, which offered different styles of analogue sticks, didn’t have that same quality feel as these. The RG351P sticks actually feel like genuine usable real analogue sticks. Whereas on the PSP for example it felt like a smaller almost reduced functionality kind of stick. However both these sticks give you the nice kind of rubber texturized feel and the nice little resistiveness you want to feel in an analogue stick.
The thing that really does impress me about this console is the fact that it has an L1, L2, R1 and R2 button layout as well. All the buttons have a wonderful feel to them and it has every single button you would expect that you would need to play almost all modern video games.
You see again if we look at the Playstation PSP and even the Playstation Vita they didn’t have four shoulder buttons like this. The PSP only had two shoulder buttons and the PS Vita went for the work around. It had two physical buttons and two touch buttons on the pad at the back. Which for me were not very natural and not comfortable to use. This is a really simple but well thought out design and throughout using this every single day I have not had any issues of using the RG351P.
To round off the rest of the buttons and the inputs there is a volume rocker on the right hand side, a reset button and an sd card on the bottom side. There is a power button on the left hand side and two USB 3.0 ports. One audio jack on the top as well as two little rubberized sections at the back there just to help with the grip.
RG351 Retroarch User Interface
Now when you do switch on the RG351P, it takes a slight delayed press rather than a quick tap. It takes like half a second hold, then powers up with a little vibration and straight away goes into an absolutely wonderful menu.
This is the thing that really stood out for me, the operating system on the RG351P. You see on previous emulation devices, like the Pockect Go, there is an operating system but it feels more like an early 90s operating system. Which result in the Pocket Go definitely being a system whereby maybe inexperienced users and younger users could easily get lost and maybe start to change settings that they shouldn’t.
Whereas the Anbernic RG351 has a fantastic operating system. It just brings you straight into a menu of all the emulators and every single emulator is depicted with some wonderful artwork. For example the DS, Sega, Nintendo, Playstation all of them have artwork which are relevant to the consoles and the games that are available for those retro consoles. It’s also buttery smooth to navigate through the menu.
This for me is a real game changer and this makes this emulation station, this portable handheld, feel like a genuine video game console. It feels like a real premium handheld. It doesn’t just feel like a little device that has a few emulators on there and just lets you play them.
With the Pocket Go I really enjoyed the device. But the operating system felt a little bit too awkward for me. And like I said for younger users, like when I’d let my son play it. I always worried that he’d end up finding himself lost somewhere in the menu system and maybe even changing settings that he shouldn’t. Also powering up and powering down the Pocket Go takes a certain sequence to do it properly. You can technically power it off straight away but it’s not best for the operating system. The operating system on the RG351P seems to be pretty simple to just power it down and power it back on without causing any glitches or issues.
RG351p Issues
In terms of glitches and issues in the three weeks of using the RG351P every single day not once have I had a crash or an issue that has taken me out of the game. This is really good and is essential for immersion to not have your game break on you instantly. I think when it comes to retro emulators that’s something that we expect and we forgive. So to have a retro handheld device that brings you straight into the operating system. And hides all the shenanigans behind a nice cover to enable you to load your games easily and simply, to let you play those games without interruptions really is a great achievement.
When you are in any video game it is really easy to bring up the quick menu for the emulator as well. You press in both the analogue stick. The menu is really simple and easy to use based on Retroarch. It has all the options you’d expect to see. The first thing it presents you with is a quick menu with all the most relevant things things like save states, being able to change your controls and be able to quit out of the game. Once again this is really simple quick and easy to use.
RG351p Retro Game Emulation
The RG351P feels great it’s got loads of great buttons it’s got a nice slick user interface. But how does it handle emulators and playing your games. Well this I’m happy to say is the part that I’m most excited about. The RG351P offers emulation from 8bit and 16bit all the way up to the Dreamcast and N64 generation. And even goes on to support Playstation Portable as well. That is pretty damn phenomenal especially for a device that is so small and compact.
Along with offering all that emulation opportunity it also comes packed with hundreds if not thousands of retro games on a 64 gigabyte SD card. If you go into the library for let’s say an 8-bit or a 16-bit console you could easily find yourself scrolling through about three to five hundred retro games. As you go up the generations obviously the ROM sizes get bigger and the library reduces somewhat. The N64 for example has five games that comes packed with it whereas the Playstation 1 has about 20 games. Which is pretty staggering to be honest. Plus all of the games are huge system sellers for those consoles. Some of the best games like Banjo-Kazooie, Mario 64, Dino Crisis for the PS1, Gran Turismo, Sonic Adventures for Dreamcast and a huge selection of the best games for those consoles.
Now when it comes to emulation quality I would say it hits the mark at about a 9 out of 10. Let’s go into a little bit more detail on that. Every single game I tried from the 8-bit all the way up to the Playstation generation ran really smoothly. I came across no issues in graphics and no issues in the sound and music either. There will be a few examples throughout there where the emulation isn’t necessarily spot on but that will be down to the roms themselves rather than the emulator. That range I would categorize as the best emulation on the RG351P.
The N64 would be the next stage. Where on the N64 I saw a couple of small glitches things like maybe a brief stutter. For example the transition in Banjo-Kazooie happens with a load of jigsaw pieces flying on wasn’t as smooth as you would see on the actual console. However those glitches were very minor and did not take away from the immersion and the gameplay. The actual gameplay itself felt smooth and enjoyable. I’ve actually been playing through Banjo-Kazooie for the first time ever and enjoying it thoroughly.
RG351 Dreamcast Emulation
Now the Dreamcast, as amazing as it is for the Dreamcast emulation to be on this console, it was the weakest of all the emulators. I tried it with Sonic Adventures 2 and I tried it with Crazy Taxi but unfortunately the audio skips quite a bit. Especially in those two games and along with the audio skipping there’s a little bit of jumpiness as well. You can play through Dreamcast games no problem and you could experience the full game however it does break the immersion. Whereas I would say the emulation for the rest of the retro consoles were around about a nine out of ten. For the Dreamcast I would put it at about a seven out of ten.
One thing I would also like to add is the DS emulation as well. I always wonder how consoles and emulators will handle the DS because of the dual screen situation of the DS. I was really pleased to see that the RG351P, I guess it’s thanks to Retroarch, had a really nice smooth way of handling the dual screens. You basically have two options you can have the option where both screens are displayed at the same time or you can display a single screen at once. But when you’re displaying a single screen at once you can switch the other screen simply with the press of the L2 button.
For most games on the DS this worked brilliantly. I was playing through Mario Kart and as I was racing if I wanted to quickly check the map I’d quickly press L2 and then back again. The transition is so quick and so smooth it didn’t once spoil the gameplay. Now I’m not sure that will work for all DS games, but for the vast majority it’s a really good workaround and an issue that most emulators are gonna have to face and find a way to deal with.
RG351 Retro Video Games
The RG351P comes packed and I mean packed with loads of the best retro video games. However it is really simple and easy to add your own video games as well. The 64 gigabyte sd card that comes has around about 10 to 11 gigabytes spare so you have space to add games from any generation. All you need to do is plug in your SD card into a laptop and you want to access the Games directory on there. Don’t access the Emulek directory that’s the one that’s handling all the emulation and the operating system. You don’t want to mess with that one! Only access the Games directory.
Once you’re in there there’ll be an obvious folder structure of all the different consoles and the bios is for those consoles. Just drop your own files into the relevant console folder and you’re good to go. Put your SD card back into your RG351, go to that relevant emulator and fire up your game. Obviously I put Metal Gear Solid in there. It didn’t come on the device and every device I have, if it can handle it, is gonna have Metal Gear Solid on there. I put the rom in fired it up and straight away it was running perfectly. And honestly it’s actually better playing MGS on this device than it is playing it on my PS Vita. That is because of the extra buttons that the RG351 has.
RG351P Features
Now something else that’s a really nice quality of life feature and something we’ve come to expect on handheld at least premium handheld consoles is a sleep function. If you tap the power button the RG351 goes into sleep mode and it’s absolutely brilliant. It’s so smooth just like you would expect from your Playstation Portable or your Playstation Vita. Once you tap the power button again it loads up straight away exactly where you were.
Most of the time I have my console in sleep mode when I’m not using it and when it is in sleep mode it doesn’t seem to lose any battery. I mean obviously it will use a small amount of battery but it doesn’t lose enough for you to actually come back to it and suddenly it’s powered off and you’ve lost where you were in the game. You’ll also be using save states to save your game to ensure you don’t lose progress and that’s one of the best things about emulators but the sleep mode is fantastic and I have used it for days on end jumping in and out of sleep mode and the battery has lasted ages.
RG351p Unboxing
Next let’s talk about the packaging because there are a couple of nice surprises in there that I didn’t expect. The box that the RG351P comes in is pretty simple it’s just a white box with a little bit of a design on the front of the RG351P. When you open the box the first thing you see is the RG351 console. However underneath the console are a few little extras.
Now as expected there’s a USB 3 cable in there for you to charge it. However there’s also a really good screen protector and not one of these flimsy screen protectors that are really difficult to put on. Next up there’s a wi-fi dongle in there a tiny little dongle that you can plug into your RG351P to enable it to have wireless connectivity as well. Now this is a nice little surprise. Granted including that into the actual base design of the console would have been nicer. I guess if they want to keep size down and to enable the extra space for all the buttons it makes sense. With that being the design choice you wouldn’t be surprised if they just shipped it without a WI-FI dongle and expected you to buy one for yourself. I mean they’re only about 10 – 15 pounds. However to see that Anbernic put that in there already free to use was a really nice surprise.
The final thing that was in the box was a USB 3 to a standard USB converter. This connector is used then you can plug in a game controller a USB game controller. Now we’ll get into that a little bit more later on. Again it was a nice little extra that they didn’t need to add into the box now.
RG351P Controllers
We discussed how it had two USB 3.0 ports and that the console comes with a little USB 3 to standard USB adapter. That adapter can be used to connect your own USB controller. Now I must admit I tried doing this with an Xbox 360 controller. I also tried doing it with just a USB controller I got off eBay and unfortunately they weren’t plug and play. Straight away you can see that the console recognizes the controller. But the controller isn’t instantly set up to just start using.
You can navigate through the menu system no problem and you can select the game you want to play but when you jump into the game as a standard it sees Port 1 as the controls on the console which are the standard controls. So you have to go into the settings and change your Port 1 settings from the built-in controls to the USB controller. When that’s done you then need to set up your button layout as well and this honestly got a little bit finicky. I’ve done this before on my Retro Pi and it’s the same menu system in terms of setting up your controllers that you’d expect to see on a retro arc device.
However it was a bit finicky and in the end I gave up. I did get it working on Banjo-Kazooie but because of the awkward N64 controller layout I got a little bit lost. So I just unplugged it and carried on playing. I’m sure if you spend a bit of time you’ll be able to set up controller and you’ll be able to play with your mate on the same device. But I’m not really sure if you’d want to play Mario Kart split screen on a device with a screen this small. It’s a big screen don’t get me wrong but it’s too small for split screen in my opinion.
RG351P Review Conclusion
Now all in all the RG351 is a fantastic little retro handheld console. It has a couple of niggles, its build quality is brilliant and everything else about the console just feels so solid and well built. The operating system is fantastic and it has all the quality of life features you would expect to make it an easy pick up and play handheld console. Something that’s great for retro gamers like us or something that’s great to give to your kid and know that they can safely just play video games without getting lost in some kind of crazy operating system.
It comes packed with loads and loads of video games and extra functionality. Even if that functionality is not necessarily something you’d want to use, like the controller support. It’s nice to know that it’s there. The emulation quality from 8-bit all the way up to the Playstation 1 PSP and N64 generation is absolutely brilliant. However the Dreamcast emulation, as nice as it is to have on the console, is not and will not be my preferred way to play video games on the Dreamcast.
In the last three weeks i have done nothing but keep the RG351P in my pocket every single day and every single opportunity I’ve been playing it. Not just for the purposes of reviewing it for the channel but because I’m just having so much fun. I’m getting to experience Banjo-Kazooie in my hand for the first time ever and I am thoroughly loving it. It’s given me that rush of nostalgia, it’s taking me back to being a child and it doesn’t feel like I’m having a reduced experience.
There is so much to be said for emulating on your mobile phone especially when you’re using a controller clipped onto the phone as well. However the buttery smoothness of the RG351, the operating system, the games that are packed into this thing already and will not take up space from my mobile phone mean that this is now my preferred way to play retro video games on the go.
You can find the RG351P going for anywhere between 50 pounds to 80 pounds. I think on average it’s about £80. For that price this is a fantastic little retro emulation handheld and a little device that will warm any retro gamers hearts. Now if you want to get your hands on an rg351p then you can check it out right here.
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