Super Pocket Data East / NEOGEO / Taito - Portable, Affordable Nostalgia

There’s a moment, when one of these chunky little Super Pocket handhelds boots up, that you realise nostalgia is no longer enough. We’ve moved beyond just remembering old games — we want them hand-picked, legal, and wrapped in a tiny object that fits into the pocket of a grown-up coat.

Hyper Mega Tech (Evercade’s sibling company) clearly understood the assignment. The Super Pocket line — available in multiple flavours — feels like a Venn diagram where reverence of retro glory intersects with a dopamine hit, wrapped in a toy-like case. They have USB-C charging, a crisp IPS screen, and the revelation that these devices also take Evercade cartridges – which effectively turns them into miniature consoles with an expanding library, for the very reasonable price of £49. Christmas is mere weeks away, so are these worth popping in a stocking?

First, let's look at the build. The D-pad on each unit is satisfyingly supportive, which is a big plus when it comes to fighting games. The buttons, too, feel premium, although the rear bumpers — rarely used in most of the games here — are a little cumbersome to reach in conjunction with the face buttons. Still, the OS has been designed well: you can save or load each game into multiple slots, and there is a battery indicator when you head into the settings. Would a low battery warning have been appreciated when I forgot to save my progress and the unit suddenly died? Yes. Yes, it would. Still, with around 4-5 hours of playtime, a full charge will easily last you for a commute or two. The volume level is decent too, and if you don’t want to annoy your fellow train passengers, there’s a headphone socket. 

It feels like the handhelds have been designed with precision, and the official licensing lends weight to their existence. These aren’t mere emulation bricks with 6,000 misspelled ROM files. They’re curated collections with a sense of intention. That intention is mostly well-meaning, but I took a look at three of their handhelds (Taito, Data East, and NEOGEO), and there is a definite gulf in quality between them. It’s worth choosing wisely.

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SUPER POCKET: TAITO EDITION

Taito isn’t here to show off. It doesn’t need to. It was building the foundations of modern gaming while the rest of the industry was still arguing over whose cabinet had the better ashtray.

The Taito Super Pocket is the gaming equivalent of someone mentioning they own vinyl: retro, a little smug, and impossible not to admire.

‍Included Games:

• Bubble Bobble
• Cadash
• Chack’n Pop
• Don Doko Don
• Elevator Action
• Football Champ
• Growl
• Kiki Kaikai
• Liquid Kids
• Operation Wolf
• Puzzle Bobble
• Rastan
• Space Invaders
• Space Invaders ’91
• The Fairyland Story
• The Legend of Kage
• The NewZealand Story
• Volfied

This is the most consistently strong lineup of the three. Taito’s output doesn’t rely on novelty or irony — Bubble Bobble is still bright and dangerously addictive, Puzzle Bobble remains a masterclass in “one more go,” and Operation Wolf on a handheld turns a quiet train carriage into a covert hostage rescue mission.

Vertical shooters, puzzlers, platformers — this unit has range. Its games feel like design skeleton keys; you can see modern genres gestating in their logic. I hadn’t played Rastan since the buggy Ocean port on an Amstrad CPC, and this restored my faith in it as a decent side-scroller. Space Invaders ‘91 is another great addition, and anyone who fails to be endeared by The NewZealand Story is possibly dead to the core. 

Of course, with 18 titles, not all are hits. Elevator Action is over four decades old, and hasn’t stood the test of time. We probably didn’t need Football Champ, but your opinion may differ if you’re into arcade sports. And Don Doko Don and The Fairyland Story are two more Bubble Bobble-like games which don’t quite capture the magic. 

Still, this is one hell of a lineup overall, and the handheld I found myself repeatedly returning to over the course of this piece — because the reward loop for many of the games is just so damn good. 

Verdict (Taito):

The thinking person’s nostalgia. A beautifully preserved slice of arcade history that happens to fit in your pocket — if you can only choose one of these three handhelds, Taito is the surest bet for fun.

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SUPER POCKET: DATA EAST EDITION

While the other two handhelds in this article have a warm, comforting feeling of knowing that you’re getting the hits, Data East appears to have improvised. This thing is a time capsule buried in a blue-and-orange blast of caffeine. It’s inconsistent, messy, and occasionally baffling, and I remember seeing barely any of the 18 games packed into it in the arcade. 

Let’s just say, some things age well, and some don’t. Most of the titles here… don’t. If Taito is your wise grandmother and NEOGEO is your flashy older brother, Data East is the chaotic cousin who shows up to the family reunion wearing sunglasses indoors and carrying a ferret.

Included Games:

• B-Wings
• Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja
• BreakThru
• BurgerTime
• Burnin’ Rubber
• Chain Reaction
• Crude Buster
• Gate of Doom (Dark Seal)
• Joe & Mac Returns
• Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja
• Karate Champ
• Lock ’n’ Chase
• Peter Pepper’s Ice Cream Factory
• Spinmaster
• Super BurgerTime
• Edward Randy
• Tumblepop
• Wizard Fire (Dark Seal II)

Tumblepop is the only game I played on a physical cabinet, and it remains a lot of fun. BurgerTime and its (slightly better) sequel is one of the strangest platforming concepts ever conceived: build a burger by walking on the ingredients, while evil sausages aggressively patrol the lettuce. Bad Dudes vs. Dragon Ninja opens with the most ’80s sentence committed to code: “Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the President?” The answer may be yes, but only if you are happy to smash through credits and spam the punch button.

There’s pure madness in the lineup here. Some games are brilliant. A few are “what if we coded this over a weekend and never playtested it?” B-Wings and BreakThru should be consigned to the bin along with a few other games that would embarrass an 8-bit home computer (Karate Champ? Lock ‘N’ Chase?). There’s a fun throwing mechanic in Crude Buster, but then you realise that’s all it has. The Dark Seal games had promise with their isometric action and Gauntlet-esque party system, but they manage to be both simultaneously overwhelming and boring.

When the vibe hits, it sings. Edward Randy is an experiment channelling Indiana Jones which is batshit insane and outshines every other beat-em-up on here. Joe & Mac have two entries, one of which heavily riffs on Tumblepop, both of which are enjoyable in their own right, if you ignore the female objectification and fat shaming. Spinmaster is a decent way to spend 25 minutes but will likely leave your memory the moment the credits roll. And… well, those are the highlights, and there aren’t many of them.

‍Verdict (Data East):
Not every game is a winner. In fact, I’d argue that only a third of the games on here are still fun to play. But every game has character. Does that count for more? You can decide. For me, this is the weakest of the three handhelds. 

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SUPER POCKET: NEOGEO EDITION

If the Taito and Data East units feel nostalgic, the Neo Geo edition feels prestigious. There’s always been a certain reverence attached to SNK’s hardware — the original Neo Geo AES cost more than a second-hand car, and its cartridges looked like VHS tapes because, culturally, subtlety wasn't part of the design brief. It wasn’t just a console. It was an event.

Owning this Super Pocket doesn’t give you that same “I may have accidentally joined a high-end audio cult” energy, but it does let you play some of the system’s greatest hits without selling a family heirloom.

Included Games:

• Alpha Mission II
• Blazing Star
• Fatal Fury Special
• King of the Monsters 2: The Next Thing
• Last Resort
• Metal Slug X
• Mutation Nation
• OverTop
• Samurai Shodown 2
• Sengoku 3
• Shock Troopers: 2nd Squad
• Soccer Brawl
• The Last Blade
• Top Hunter: Roddy & Cathy

The included games lean hard into what made Neo Geo iconic: big sprites, louder-than-life sound design, and that unmistakable SNK swagger. Metal Slug X and Last Resort feel as frantic and explosive as ever, with bullets, debris, and screen-filling chaos handled surprisingly well by the handheld. Blazing Star remains a masterclass in arcade shoot-'em-up design — equal parts exhilarating and humbling — while Mutation Nation and Sengoku 3 serve up the kind of side-scrolling beat-’em-up excess the '90s specialised in.

Fighting games, naturally, are here too. Samurai Shodown 2, Fatal Fury Special, and The Last Blade still have the precision, rhythm, and theatricality that put SNK on the map. Purists may decry the lack of the original Samurai Shodown, but honestly, the sequel is better. The button layout takes a little compromise — no handheld is going to mimic a full Neo Geo arcade panel — but the Super Pocket does an admirable job of keeping inputs responsive and clean. You can absolutely pull off the moves you remember, even if your muscle memory screams for a larger control surface.

Sound emulation deserves special praise. The distinctive percussion, the chunky digitised effects, and the unapologetic arcade cabinet attitude all survive the transition intact. It’s loud, bold, and leans heavily into spectacle — just as Neo Geo should. The 14 game roster may feel a bit thin compared to the other Super Pockets, but there’s little fat to trim here.

In short: this is the closest you can get to pocket-sized SNK authenticity without carrying a small arcade around with you. For newcomers, it’s a crash course in what made Neo Geo legendary. For returning fans, it feels like catching up with someone who hasn't aged — just shrunk.

Verdict (Neo Geo): 

This is the showpiece of the three: the one you show your friends and reminisce about how well the games still hold up, while the entire unit costs less than a single cartridge did when it was originally released.

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                                                                                                            *****

Looked at together, the three Super Pocket editions paint a tidy little timeline of arcade culture. The Taito unit feels the most complete — a confident mix of genre-shaping hits and warmly familiar staples that still hold up without needing nostalgia as a crutch. The Neo Geo edition sits just behind it, louder and punchier, built for players who want technical mastery and a bit of swagger in their portable retro fix. The Data East model is a little more uneven, but there’s a scrappy charm to it — the kind of collection that feels like rummaging through forgotten cabinets in a seaside arcade and rediscovering the odd gem. But even taking the (very) rough diamonds into account, the other two licences are superior.

Regardless, they each appeal to slightly different audiences, but the core experience remains the same: pick-up-and-play classics without the hassle, fluff, or modern reinterpretation. In a world full of remasters and “reimaginings,” there’s something refreshing about hardware that simply preserves the pulse of the original.

Review units were provided by Blaze Media and Hyper Mega Tech!