Sporting one of the best colour schemes we’ve seen on a Super Pocket so far (beaten only by the Limited Edition Neo Geo Super Pocket, in my opinion), whether or not the Data East Super Pocket console is worth picking up is less dependent on its lovely looks, and more to do with its built-in selection of games.

Though there’s some truly iconic games included, such as BurgerTime, Bad Dudes vs DragonNinja and Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja, arguably the most interesting titles are the lesser known ones. I really enjoyed the ancient, top-down racer Burning Rubber, for example, along with the isometric, Gauntlet-esque RPG action found in Gate of Doom and Wizard Fire. Plus there’s the sprite scaling, non-stop action of Indiana Jones mockbuster, Edward Randy.

With 18 arcade titles included, there’s a nicely eclectic mix of genres and a good sense of Data East’s heritage. Yet just about all of these games have appeared on previous Evercade cartridges in one form or another, with only yo-yo based platformer Spinmaster being truly ‘exclusive’ to the Data East Super Pocket.

Spinmaster itself is fantastic, it must be said; an action packed platformer with solid mechanics, it was released on Neo Geo hardware originally, so it looks and sounds gorgeous too.

It’s perhaps not worth picking up a Data East Super Pocket unless you’re a real completist, however. The console itself remains a solid and dependable overall product, and the dpad has been improved over prior Super Pocket consoles (alongside the one found on the Neo Geo Super Pocket).

The fact remains that you can find much stronger selections of games on devices such as the Capcom and TAITO Super Pockets, and the Neo Geo Super Pocket is probably the one that offers the most bang for your buck, given how expensive Neo Geo titles were historically, but also how well each of them has aged.

So, completists or Data East aficionados aside, this is probably a console that can be skipped. Of course, it still allows access to the entire Evercade cartridge library so it’s not as if you’re forever limited to the device’s 18 built-in games, but my preference and recommendation would definitely be to pick up one of the other Super Pocket consoles over this one.

You can buy the Data East Super Pocket console from Amazon.

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