These are the best Evercade cartridges available

Staff writer and resident Evercade enthousiast, Jimmy, has on top of the Blaze Entertainment retro console from the day its first console launched and selected the best Evercade cartridge currently available for you. Having a complete collection of Blaze Entertainment’s retro-console library certainly helps in advancing you what cartridges to invest in, but of course, to each their own. So, these are the best Evercade cartridges out of the 41 available right now.

By the way, be sure to check out all our other Evercade content on our dedicated Evercade page.

If you want to buy Evercade hard- or software, check the following sites:

• Europe : Funstock.eu
• North America : Songbird Productions

Atari Collection 1 (Home Cartridge #1)

As the pack-in cartridge for the Evercade Handheld (2020), Evercade’s latest hardware edition started off with a real bang. With 20 games in this inaugural edition, it has a cross-selection of Atari’s best early console work. Canyon Bomber, Centipede, Food Fight, Ninja Golf, Video Pinball, and Yars’ Revenge are all personal favorites of mine. This cartridge has a fantastic mix of Atari 2600 and 7800 cartridges and is a must-have, even if it is packaged with the now-discontinued original Handheld System.

Atari Lynx Collection 1 (Home Cartridge #13)

The first of two Lynx sets includes 17 very intriguing games that combine both original retail releases and newly developed Songbird Production games and could not be left out of our best Evercade cartridge list. Personal favorites include Ishido, Loopz, Super Asteroids/Missile Command which is the final retail release for the Atari Lynx. Also included is Crystal Mines 2, which is an updated version of the original Lynx release made by Carl Forhan of Songbird, who added 125 additional levels to the original, making a very impressive total of 300+ levels. If you purchase this cart from Songbird Productions, Carl Forhan, the creator of several of these releases, will (most likely) autograph the case.

You can find the cartridge on Songbird’s webshop here.

Gremlin Collection 1 (Home Cartridge #24)

Even with just six games in this first (and so far only) Gremlin Collection, it has a great combination of PlayStation 1, Super Nintendo, Mega Drive, and Game Boy titles. The vast majority of these games are standouts, like Zool, Hardcore 4×4, Actua Soccer, and Brain Bender. The latter is a very unique Game Boy-only puzzler where you have to turn mirrors to manipulate a laser to achieve the puzzle’s objective. The footy games are, of course, very specific, especially Premier Manager 97, but I can imagine it being fun to play with ’97’s Arsenal and manager Patrick Vieira, Bergkamp, and Anelka.

• Actua Soccer (PS1)
• Brain Bender (GB)
• Hardcore 4X4 (PS1)
• Premier Manager 97 (Genesis)
• Utopia: The Creation of a Nation (SNES)
• Zool (Genesis)

Alwa’s Awakening/Cathedral (Home Cartridge #27)

This classic cartridge is just one of two (so far) that are twin-packs, meaning just two games are in a cart. The first was Xeno Crisis/Tanglewood, which is just outside my top 5. The second twin-pack beats it out hands down. Cart #27 contains Elden Pixels’ Alwa’s Awakening and Cathedral. Alwa’s Awakening has a really enjoyable storyline, metroidvania gameplay with gorgeous 8-bit style graphics, all created by a first-time solo dev. Cathedral I like even more. It is also an 8-bit-ish metroidvania with a fairly interesting story. The protagonist is a knight who has forgotten who he is and is trying to piece his life together again. It has mechanics reminiscent of Shovel Knight and Wonder Boy Dragon’s Trap. This game was my 2022 indie game of the year and is a game I still play nearly every time I turn on an Evercade console, whether it is the Handheld, EXP, or VS.

Galeco Arcade 2 (Arcade Cartridge #6)

For the arcade side of the Evercade cartridges released so far, this may come as a wild surprise for many readers, as my personal favorite. It includes World Rally 2, the absolute superior sequel to the very good but cookie-cutter original that is on “Galeco Arcade 1”. Also included are Big Karnak (a formidable side-scrolling action platformer), Touch and Go (beach volleyball), and my personal surprise favorite on this cartridge, Squash. It may be one of the very few squash/racquetball games ever created. Squash is very fast-paced, yet an extremely fair game.

• Big Karnak
• Maniac Square
• Squash
• TH Strikes Back: Thunder Hoop 2
• Touch and Go
• World Rally 2

What are your best Evercade cartridges? Drop your suggestions on X!