Analogue3D Review: A Retro Gamer's Dream

Perfectly handles immoderate archetypal N64 game. Supports archetypal accessories. Wide controller compatibility. Elegant carnal design.

Still awaiting immoderate system-level features. Controllers sold separately.

Brace yourself, millennials—the Nintendo 64 turns 30 successful 2026. The console you spent countless hours huddled astir arsenic a kid is present aged capable to beryllium crippled by pupil indebtedness and burdened with existential despair, conscionable similar you! If that reminder of the cruel and ceaseless march of clip makes you privation to retreat into a nostalgic bubble erstwhile beingness was easier and, say, play immoderate N64 games, unfortunately, that's been beauteous tricky successful caller years.

Nintendo itself offers immoderate N64 titles digitally done its Nintendo Switch Online work connected Nintendo Switch oregon Switch 2, but it's a limited, curated collection, and lone disposable to subscribers. Emulation poses problems, not slightest implicit questionable legality—but the N64 has been a notoriously hard level for emulators to ace without lag oregon ocular glitches, partially down to the mode galore developers utilized customized microcode to maximize show connected the archetypal hardware. And, adjacent if you inactive person a vintage N64 console and a stack of crippled cartridges, they're not designed for modern TVs, successful presumption of connectivity oregon resolution.

Enter, then, the Analogue3D, the latest console from the makers of the Analogue Pocket. Like its portable predecessor, this is simply a tract programmable gross array (FPGA) portion of kit that perfectly mimics the archetypal console, allowing you to play authentic crippled carts without emulation. It goes beyond being a third-party remake though—it runs those games amended than ever acknowledgment to a baked-in virtualized Expansion Pak and the quality to overclock, beautifully presenting games with a big of show options, and outputting it each successful glorious 4K.

Throw successful cosmopolitan enactment for N64 carts and accessories from anyplace successful the world, meaning the portion lockouts of the '90s are virtually a happening of the past, and this mightiness conscionable beryllium my favourite "new" console of 2025.

Making the Old New Again

At a glance, you whitethorn conscionable mistake the Analogue3D for the existent thing, particularly the achromatic exemplary (it's besides disposable successful white). The caller console shares a akin silhouette and arching beforehand illustration with Nintendo's classic, borrowing its swooping curves and soil dune-like recesses astir the cartridge slot, a motif repeated astir the Power and Reset buttons. Look person and you'll announcement refinements though—this sits lower, lacks the bulbous beforehand "feet" of the N64, and boasts elegant crisp edges, giving it a creaseless and thoroughly modern look. Overall, it's smaller and lighter than its inspiration, too—230 x 180 x 49 mm and 837 grams, versus the N64's 260 x 190 x 73 mm and 1100 grams.

The Analogue3D besides abandons the contrasting airy grey integrative that was connected the N64's 4 front-facing controller ports and cartridge slot gates, preferring an wholly monochrome approach. Nintendo's colorful logo is besides traded for a azygous LED—which serves arsenic some the powerfulness indicator and the Bluetooth pairing fastener for wireless controllers—making this a gorgeous spot of minimalist design.

The console packs successful a 1.5-meter HDMI cablegram and a USB-C-to-C powerfulness cable, but lone a US/Japan benignant two-prong plug. If you're readying connected picking this up successful different territory, you'll request to prime up a section USB-C plug oregon usage a question adaptor—which is simply a spot annoying for this British reviewer. The console besides comes with a 16-GB full-sized SD paper inserted astatine the rear for firmware updates, and successful a neat touch, a brace of cartridge interaction cleaners, designed to mildly polish the connectors connected immoderate games that whitethorn person gathered a spot excessively overmuch particulate implicit the years.

Boot it up and you're met with its customized operating system, 3Dos. Like the console itself, it takes a strikingly minimalist approach, each precise achromatic pixel substance connected a stark achromatic background. The OS arsenic a full is inactive cooking—more connected that later—but it's already showing signs of being a crippled archivist's dream. It builds a room of each cart you play, and displays accusation specified arsenic developer, publisher, the portion mentation of the cart you've inserted, however galore players it supports, and more. By default, there's nary creation for the cart library, but you tin adhd icons manually and it'll lucifer the representation to the cart accordingly—my reappraisal portion had immoderate included to showcase the feature, and you tin expect community-led representation libraries astir instantly astatine launch.

Looking Good for Their Age

I was skeptical of however good the Analogue3D would clasp up erstwhile it comes to really playing decades-old games, but that cynicism was instantly shattered. I spent implicit a week throwing much than a twelve games astatine it, a premix of US and UK carts, and it's accurately identified and tally each azygous 1 of them.

The lone carts that threw up immoderate issues were UK copies of 007: The World is Not Enough and Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, which initially refused to launch. In specified cases, the Analogue3D presents a achromatic screen, which is simply a spot disorienting arsenic you're near wondering if it's stalled, crashed, oregon is conscionable inactive loading. A speedy walk of the cart cleaners and the aged faithful instrumentality of blowing connected it sorted the occupation though.

The deficiency of immoderate portion fastener is simply a peculiar delight—for instance, Wave Race 64 suffered from slowdown connected the PAL release, but I've been playing the NTSC mentation without issue, portion besides getting thoroughly engrossed successful Ogre Battle 64, which ne'er got a UK merchandise astatine the time. It's besides nice, if a small strange, to play Star Fox 64, alternatively than the re-named Lylat Wars mentation I grew up with.

Performance wise, it's different win. Games look large and tally incredibly smoothly connected Analogue3D. Games specified arsenic Donkey Kong 64, which primitively required the carnal Expansion Pak, enactment as-is acknowledgment to the Analogue3D's virtual one—and the automatically enabled overclocking tin boost things further. This diagnostic tin beryllium manually acceptable to Enhanced, Enhanced+, oregon Unleashed modes, and I've ne'er played a four-player contention of F-Zero X arsenic flawlessly arsenic it runs here. If you crave authenticity though, you tin besides unit the strategy to tally games precisely arsenic the archetypal hardware did.

The strategy packs successful a somewhat daunting array of show modes to precisely tailor however you privation games to look, with BVM (Broadcast Video Monitor), PVM (Professional Video Monitor), CRT, and Scanlines modes each offering nuanced ways to recreate the look of the archetypal N64 connected a container TV. There's besides an enactment for a "Clean" show that removes scanlines entirely, but this feels similar a curiosity much than anything—games of this epoch weren't meant to beryllium seen naked.

The grade of ocular customization present borders connected the ridiculous, but successful a bully way. The CRT-replicating modes let you to tinker with ocular elements that astir non-specialists won't person adjacent heard of, specified arsenic the horizontal and vertical beam convergences and borderline hardness, portion Clean offers 5 antithetic image-polishing algorithms to experimentation with. A built-in explainer of what immoderate of these features are wouldn't spell amiss, but anyone who wants to precisely tweak outputs is well-served here.

Across each modes, determination are 3 "Image Size" options (Original, Integer, and Integer+, determining the existent size of the output image) and 3 for "Image Fit". That adjusts the standard oregon facet ratio, with Original, Stretch (a forced widescreen), and Cinema Zoom, which fills your 16:9 TV screen. The second looked the worst, cropping disconnected each edges connected each crippled I tried. As with film, the archetypal facet ratio successful games matters—learn to emotion it.

For astir games, I settled connected PVM show mode, Integer+ for the largest representation size, with the archetypal facet ratio. You tin tinker with settings in-game to spot what works best, and the Analogue3D remembers precisely however you've acceptable up each cart betwixt play sessions.

3Dos besides allows you to tweak hardware settings earlier launching a game, allowing you to disable the virtual Expansion Pak (useful, arsenic definite games, similar Space Station Silicon Valley, had compatibility issues with it), oregon crook 32bit colour and anti-aliasing connected oregon off. Again, each worldly astir apt beyond the needs of anyone who wants to revisit their aged N64 collection, but precise invited features otherwise.

It's important to enactment that the Analogue3D isn't magically remastering games though—you're getting an output of up to 4K60 prime with nary blurring oregon distortion, but the games volition inactive look arsenic they did originally, conscionable palatable connected a modern display.

Taking Control

When it comes to how to play those classics connected Analogue3D, gamers are spoiled for choice. It's chiefly designed to enactment with the 8BitDo N64 Controller, which reformats the N64's archetypal trident pad into a modern, wireless grip that boasts a Hall effect thumbstick and built-in haptics. In short, it's a fantastic update of that 30-year-old model. Unfortunately, the console doesn't travel with one, oregon immoderate controller astatine all—you'll request to prime them up separately.

Some players volition person gotten a consciousness for the caller pad already though—delays successful the Analogue3D's planned summertime 2025 motorboat meant that 8BitDo's controller released first, and fixed it's besides compatible with the Switch oregon Switch 2, it tin beryllium utilized with the N64 catalog there. It's fiddly to brace with Nintendo's consoles though, and needs to beryllium re-connected each clip you privation to usage it. Here, it not lone pairs rapidly but stays paired, and tin adjacent aftermath the Analogue3D from slumber with a long-press of its powerfulness button—explaining wherefore the powerfulness power is simply a slide, alternatively than a hard on/off toggle.

Alternatively, 2 USB-A ports astatine the rear of the console fto you plug successful different third-party controllers, oregon complaint immoderate wireless pads you connect. Finally, if you inactive person immoderate archetypal wired N64 controllers around, the Analogue3D supports them too—just plug them into the perfectly recreated carnal ports astatine the front. Best of all, you tin premix and match, with up to 4 pads of immoderate benignant connected to recreate that old-school section four-player vibe. Actually uncovering 4 players whose schedules enactment up to play video games unneurotic successful the aforesaid country successful 2025 is tough, but I strong-armed immoderate friends into a spot of GoldenEye 007 and F-Zero X utilizing 3 8BitDo pads and 1 archetypal N64 pad, and it each worked perfectly.

Even though Nintendo's three-pronged pad was awful, it does marque a lawsuit for its continued usage here, arsenic it lets you usage archetypal N64 accessories connected the Analogue3D. The accepted pad has a built-in enlargement port, designed to location the Controller Pak (AKA representation card), Rumble Pak (which added immoderate rudimentary haptics), oregon Transfer Pak (allowing Game Boy carts to link to N64 games). Plug immoderate of these into an OG N64 pad and games connected the Analogue3D volition admit them arsenic normal—perfect if you privation a genuinely authentic '90s gaming experience. The Controller and Rumble Paks are virtualized if you're not utilizing the existent happening (pressing the minus fastener connected an 8BitDo controller lets you swap betwixt which 1 is active), but you'll request to excavation up an authentic Transfer Pak if you fancy combining Pokémon Red with Pokémon Stadium.

This is wherever Analogue3D gets truly breathtaking for retro obscurists though, due to the fact that betwixt the carnal controller ports and the enactment for accessories connected done archetypal controllers, it should unfastened the doorway to the galore weird and wonderfulperipherals Nintendo dabbled with successful the N64 era. The Voice Recognition Unit is the 1 occidental players are astir apt to travel across—a mic packaged with voice-controlled virtual favored crippled Hey You, Pikachu!, released successful the US—but you could even, technically, usage the Japan-only Bio Sensor for Tetris 64, which made the crippled harder the higher your bosom complaint rose. I accidental "should" and "technically" for specified curiosities arsenic I (sadly?) don't person thing similar the colossal controller array utilized for bid sim Densha de Go! 64 oregon the Tsuricon 64 sportfishing rod utilized lone for Shigesato Itoi's No. 1 Bass Fishing astatine manus to test, but Analogue cites adjacent these rarities arsenic being compatible.

About the lone archetypal add-on instrumentality that specifically isn't compatible with Analogue3D is the 64DD, a Japanese enlargement portion that lone ever saw 10 games released earlier being discontinued. Curiously though, Analogue says the N64 Mouse does enactment with Analogue3D, contempt the instrumentality releasing for the 64DD, truthful possibly immoderate genuinely chaotic plans are afoot for down the line.

Still Cooking

While the Analogue3D has handled everything I've thrown astatine it admirably—playing each cart, without slowdown oregon representation issues, moving smoothly whether playing solo oregon with 4 players—there is 1 country that feels incomplete, and that’s the 3Dos strategy software.

Mockups connected the authoritative tract amusement immoderate of what's planned—virtual prevention states, screenshots, much elaborate room sorting options, adjacent a strategy clock—but nary of that is disposable yet. Other features—the day added and full play clip fields successful the room view—are contiguous but non-functional.

Also absent is immoderate online connectivity. The console physically supports dual set WiFi, it conscionable doesn't request it yet, truthful 3Dos doesn't fto you acceptable a web up. Currently, you'll request to bash strategy updates by installing them from a machine to the SD card. That said, it feels unexpectedly liberating to beryllium capable to crook connected a marque caller tech instrumentality and not person to acceptable up a broadband connection.

Does that technically mean it's launching with advertised features missing? I mean, yes, but cognize that I'm saying that with the astir labored, reluctant code possible. The crucial, cardinal offering—to play immoderate N64 game, flawlessly, connected a modern screen—is intact. You crook connected the Analogue3D, slot a cart in, and it just works. Practically thing "just works" successful 2025. That's beauteous magical.

As it stands, the Analogue3D revives 1 of the top eras successful gaming for modern screens. When strategy updates inevitably come, hopefully bringing those planned other features, they'll beryllium bolstering what's already an unthinkable retro gaming experience—an N64 that's adjacent amended than the original.