Review: ModRetro Chromatic

The thing I remember most about my childhood Nintendo Game Boy was how dirty the screen was. I managed to break it right away, popping the screen cover off completely. I don't know if it was leftover glue or some sweet sugary substance I spilled on it, but the edges of the frame remained weirdly sticky with some gunk that liked to collect dirt. Gross as it was, and even without a screen cover, it still played games just fine for years.

While not always the most durable of devices, the OG handheld Nintendo consoles could withstand enough of a beating to firmly enmesh themselves into the core memories of millions of dweebs of all ages. That is what the ModRetro Chromatic wants to be: the ultimate, hardiest version of the Game Boy ever. The Game Boy sigma, if you will. A sturdy box of nostalgia that you can take to your grave.

Behind the Name

ModRetro is a company run by Palmer Luckey, best known as the founder of the virtual reality company Oculus—now a Meta property. Nowadays, Luckey is a defense tech guy, busy cozying up to the Trump administration and running his company Anduril, the military contractor building AI-controlled weapons for the Pentagon, such as lethal drone swarms and killer chatbots.

ModRetro shares its name with an old online forum Luckey used to run, and it's more of a passion project. The goal is to recreate old-school gaming machines and package them in the slickest, most robust frames possible. With the Chromatic complete, the company plans to make a robust version of the Nintendo 64 next. Luckey has called these devices “a portal into the past that is going to live on forever.” Should you be concerned if your money is going to an arms dealer who also thinks cigarettes were good for society? Sure, probably. Are you going to let that influence what you buy? We'll see about that.

Courtesy of ModRetro

Sheer nostalgia is a powerful marketing force, after all. Devices like the Analogue Pocket have already taken a high-tech approach to playing old-school Game Boy cartridges. The Chromatic does something similar, and turns out, it's very good. It launched late last year, then quickly sold out. In July, ModRetro started selling units again, this time with a few upgrades like a snap-in battery pack and streaming support. Now it's finally staying in stock, so it's much easier to buy than the first go-around.

The handheld comes in several fun colors and can play any old Game Boy cartridge, assuming you take the time to blow the dust out of the connector slot. ModRetro also sells around a dozen original games in their cartridges. A few more are official recreations of old classics, like Rayman and Toki Tori. Prices range from $30 to $100, depending on the game.

Blast From the Past

Courtesy of ModRetro

I've spent the majority of my time on the Chromatic plunging into the rabbit hole that is ModRetro’s recreation of Tetris. And yeah, the game still holds up. Especially in such a primo way to play it. The Chromatic is lightweight, about 6.2 ounces. The outer shell is made with a “cold-touch magnesium build” that keeps your palms from getting too sweaty while playing. The 160 × 144-pixel screen is made of Corning's Gorilla Glass, but for a $100 upgrade, you can get that made from sapphire crystal, the same stuff Rolex puts on its watches.

Tapping buttons on the Chromatic lets out audible clicky-clackeys as you play. Though my childhood memories of the OG Game Boy have gotten fuzzy, I definitely don’t recall the buttons being as loud as they are on the Chromatic. That’s not meant to be a dig, as the clickability will likely appeal to anyone who enjoys banging away on a mechanical keyboard, everyone else's eardrums in the blast radius be damned. (I am one of those people.)

The Chromatic is primarily powered by three AA batteries. Another modern update is the USB-C port on the bottom, which lets you power the device directly and also connect a couple of Chromatics to play multiplayer games. You can also connect the cable to a computer to stream the video, which Luckey has said is a capability meant for streamers and speed runners.

Courtesy of ModRetro

As the name of the company might have tipped you off, ModRetro is also pitching the Chromatic as an easily repairable device. The company sells a mod kit with tools that let you swap out parts and replace buttons. If you don’t want to pony up for accessories, the Chromatic is modifiable enough to be repairable with the tools you might have lying around. The main thing that might trip you up is that on the back, the casing is held together with less common tri-wing screws, just like the original Game Boy.

The repairability factor is one of the best things the Chromatic has going for it, and it seems to be designed for the kinds of tinkerers who delight in pulling apart old tech. The thing is, there are lots of opportunities for that elsewhere, and OG Game Boy sickos will probably hunger for something that really feels like it scratches that itch. That’s why there are subreddits dedicated to modifying old Game Boys and people souping up one made out of Lego bricks to actually play old cartridge games. And then there are new devices that take that retro sensibility and package it into something new and different, like the miniature Arduboy.

If you want to just play your old games, the Chromatic is the smoothest and most chic option for that. You’re not going to have to worry about a broken screen, that’s for sure. It just might feel a little too sleek to conjure quite the dopamine hit of nostalgia that you yearn for.