Evercade just turned six and the CEO shared his favorite carts

Evercade is celebrating its sixth anniversary this year, and CEO Andrew Byatt has shared a list of his favorite cartridges from the platform's history. According to Blaze Entertainment, Byatt is selecting one standout release for each full year the system has been on the market, starting with the 2020 launch window.

I still find it amazing how many Evercade carts and devices there are, considering the platform is only six years old. Surviving in the boutique retro hardware space is difficult. Most alternative handhelds or microconsoles launch, receive a handful of firmware updates, and quietly disappear. Blaze Entertainment took a different route. They launched the original Evercade handheld in 2020 with a modest lineup of retro collections. Since then, the ecosystem has expanded to include the Evercade VS home console, the upgraded EXP handheld, the budget-friendly Super Pocket devices, and the upcoming Alpha arcade bartops. The library now sits at over 50 physical cartridges spanning arcade classics, console ports, microcomputer titles, and modern indie games.

Starting with Mega Cat

For the inaugural year of 2020, Byatt highlighted the Mega Cat Studios Collection 1. This cartridge was an early pivot for the platform. Instead of relying entirely on legacy publishers like Interplay or Namco, Blaze partnered with Mega Cat to bring modern retro indie games to the system. The cartridge includes 10 titles developed for classic hardware, such as the Sega Genesis brawler Coffee Crisis.

Byatt pointed to Tanzer, a fast-paced action game, as his go-to title for showing off what the hardware could do. It proved that the system could be a discovery engine for new games, not just a nostalgia machine.

Thirty years of Sensible Soccer

The 2021 pick went to the Codemasters Collection 1. This cartridge is packed with 17 games, but Byatt chose it entirely because of Sensible Soccer. The top-down football game originally launched on the Amiga and Atari ST in 1992. It remains a staple of European retro gaming due to its fast pace and zoomed-out camera angle.

Byatt credited Sensible Soccer as the game that grabbed his attention early on, despite his later affinity for deep simulation titles like Football Manager. Getting Codemasters on board was a major win for Blaze at the time, adding heavy hitters like Cannon Fodder and the 8-bit versions of Colin McRae Rally to the physical ecosystem.

The arcade pivot

By 2022, Evercade had introduced the VS home console and started pushing into arcade emulation. Byatt selected Irem Arcade 1 as his favorite for that year. The cartridge includes six coin-op titles, including In the Hunt and Moon Patrol.

The CEO singled out R-Type as the main draw. The 1987 horizontal shooter is famous for its biomechanical art direction and punishing difficulty curve. Bringing actual arcade ROMs to the system was a big step up from the console ports that dominated the early Evercade library.

A very crowded shelf

Blaze plans to share picks for 2023 through 2025 as well. The platform has changed quite a bit in that timeframe, adding Amiga emulation, 64-bit console support, and partnerships with publishers like Capcom, Sunsoft, and Toaplan.

The release schedule is relentless.