Chromatic Preview – Preview – Nintendo World Report

It’s wild how big of a renaissance the Game Boy has had over the last two years. First at the tail end of 2022, though for most customers in 2023, the Analogue Pocket released. A device using an FPGA core capable of running Game Boy, Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance games at their native speeds with original cartridges. The device instantly became known online as ‘the modern update to the Game Boy’. In February 2023 Game Boy (Color) and Game Boy Advance games were added to Nintendo Switch Online and made these titles playable on a home console for the very first time. Let alone improvements and parts that have been created for those modding their original systems, the Game Boy is back and more popular than ever. Now ModRetro is throwing their hat into the ring with the Chromatic. While it has been marketed as ‘the best way to experience Game Boy games’ to the general public, make no mistake. After getting my hands on it at Gamescom and talking with the creators for a few weeks I dare to say that this device might be the Game Boy to end all Game Boys.

Please note that the video above also includes additional interviews with the team at ModRetro about the Chromatic!

So what is the Chromatic? It is a device about the size and shape of the Game Boy Color. On the front you will find all the buttons you know in the positions they are supposed to be in. The single exception is in a small button near the screen (that I will get to). Unlike the Game Boy Color, the power button is moved to the position of the original Game Boy at the top of the device. Of course you’ll find a headphone jack, but also a USB-C port at the bottom of the handheld. All things considered, it looks pretty much like any ordinary Game Boy. But the difference when holding the device is immediately unmistakable. You may think this is how your Game Boy Color felt but it could not be further from the truth. The Chromatic has a magnesium alloy shell, meaning it is almost metal in its feel. This means it is not only incredibly durable, but also feels surprisingly light. Though unlike the Analogue Pocket, there is a trick up its sleeve as the Chromatic Retro uses three AA batteries.

Now before you click away, I think this is actually a good thing. Not only does it make the device more future proof than lithium ion rechargeable batteries which are prone to wear, tear and losing their charge over time, but three AA batteries add a significant amount of weight to the device. Not that it becomes too heavy to hold, but rather giving it that near perfect handheld weight where it slides comfortably in your hand and can hold it for hours. The batteries even help to make the buttons feel more responsive. As they add a little bit of resistance to the device when pushing them in. It’s touches like these that, as comfortable as the Analogue Pocket can be, the Chromatic seems to solve by going back to the physical properties of the Game Boy.

So I spoke extensively with lead engineer and designer Torin about this choice: “We know that this will deter customers even though this architecture was significantly more complex than a simple baked in lithium pack. It will take through USB C power when no batteries are in. Since the early innings of the design we elected to take a stand to support a truly universal battery by default. baked in lithium ion packs lack flexibility, hot swapping, they have a limited lifespan and often no path to purchasing a replacement. if the company producing them goes out of business, typically the pack is gone with it. Chromatic needed to have a power architecture with ultimate flexibility to live up to our promise to be an heirloom device. The use of non serviceable lithium batteries is such a dirty secret of consumer electronics. These batteries have extremely limited reuse cycles and the device effectively becomes e-waste after a few years depending on usage. Meanwhile you pick up a DMG 30 years later and put in new batteries and go.’

But at the heart of the device is something even more stunning: the screen. This screen is probably the closest thing to translating the Game Boy to a modern display as one can possibly get. It is from the ground up designed to be a 160×144 ips LCD screen solely dedicated to displaying these game boy color games. See, while the Analogue Pocket has the right dimensions for the screen itself, the colors and accuracy on that device can be a bit hit or miss. The Chromatic simply does not miss. From every possible viewing angle the pixels are rendered individually. It was astounding to see Kirby’s Tilt ‘n Tumble in action on the device, that while moving it around still looked flawless. I have been actively modding my Game Boy handhelds for a little over two years now. The gold standard has always been the IPS (in-plane switching) screen that provides a great sense of color and backlight to original Game Boy devices. I’ve also assembled ITA screens that use the bottom screen of a Nintendo DSi for the 1:1 screen ratio of the Game Boy Advance. For a recent Game Boy Color project I did, I used an AMOLED screen that was originally designed for BlackBerry phones. While I love my AMOLED display, as it turns off black pixels instead of changing them to the color black, the saturation on most of these displays can feel a bit off. Before I left for gamescom I did comparisons between Pokémon Crystal on an original GBA, GBC, my IPS GBA, my ITA GBA SP and my AMOLED GBC. All of these versions look fine enough if you don’t compare them to the original, but when putting it next to the original Game Boy Color screen, I found that all my modded screens misplaced certain colors. The Suicune running on the title screen wasn’t a light blue like on the original screen, but a deep blue or even purple at times. Of course, all these ITA, IPS and my AMOLED screens have been repurposed from other devices that weren’t all meant to be showing Game Boy (Color) games. The screen in the Chromatic is from top to bottom designed for this singular purpose and it never ceases to amaze me.

“Developing an LCD involves first defining the thin film transistor glass which was extremely challenging due to the pixel pitch being so massively large in the modern day. Chromatic goes further with a physical color filter as well to constrain the color gamut to the beautiful subdued palette of the gameboy. I was laughed out of the room many times in trying to create this display, and I’m very thankful that I ultimately found a TFT factory that was willing to work with us on this very long lead time development. If the Chromatic amounted to nothing, we are happy that the display itself exists to pass down to future generations”

So the device itself, even in this prototyping stage, is already mighty impressive. Anyone who is familiar with Game Boy hardware should be able to tell the difference instantly between the Chromatic and other FPGA-devices. But ModRetro is going one step further even than that and is actively releasing new Game Boy games in 2024. Not only is the Chromatic packed in with an improved version of Tetris, an entire library of new games is being developed. A combination of fan-favorites and classics as well as ones developed with modern tools like GBDEV. The lineup is incredibly varied from puzzle games like Patchy Matchy to Toki Tori and full on RPGs like DragonHym and Tales from Monster Land DX. The best part of all? All these cartridges are also compatible with any original Game Boy model. So you don’t even have to buy their device to play these games. The team at ModRetro is making sure to curate their selection and give old and new developers access to making their games available in a physical format.

The audiophiles will also be pleased as the Koss Porta Pro is available for purchase alongside a Chromatic Retro in the appropriate color. These headsets may look retro for show, but actually, Koss has never redesigned the Porta Pro since the mid 80’s, because the design just works. I was especially excited about this, since the side effect of modding your own Game Boy can be a noticeable humm when listening to audio from the headphone jack of the original. Now while this can be fixed by installing a separate audio-mod, this is a lot of additional work and cost for the modders that use their headphone jack. The team behind the Chromatic took a lot of time and effort into designing the device to make sure it strikes the right balance between retro authenticity and modern sensibility. This is not to say that there was no thought ahead when designing the Chromatic. According to the lead engineer Torin: “There is a Bluetooth/WiFi module on board of the device, but we are choosing to not enable this. Mainly we felt that BT audio broke the retro experience that we want out of the box Chromatic to have.”. Thankfully, since ModRetro was born from the modding scene they are not excluding future updates and hardware modifications by those ready to take their Chromatic apart.

“ Four screws remove the back shell, which unlike most handhelds does not remove the battery itself. This means the power pack can stay firmly assembled with the back entirely exposed. The PCBA lacks any thin and fragile FPCs leading to external buttons and speakers, which allows you to disassemble and reassemble quickly and without concern for damaging the product. We designed a fully custom audio module with tiny leaf springs that contact pads on the PCBA so that even the speaker has no connector. These decisions collectively make the device extremely user friendly to work with, even at the expense of cost or difficulty of architecture to modretro”

So what’s the play here? The Analogue Pocket is dedicated to be the all-in-one device, but in an age where we keep buying consumer electronics at a more rapid pace year of year I feel that there is something to be said about the Chromatic choosing to fully commit itself to a singular function, Of course, ModRetro is highly ambitious about this investment and dedication, not just viewing the Chromatic as a ‘gift’ to consumers, but placing it in the larger picture. “The firmware will be open-sourced, but chromatic doesn’t natively side-load ROMs due to our core objective to become the legal platform for classic publishers to rerelease and remaster their games. We will also be providing CAD files to third parties for buttons, membranes, etc. We envision a large ecosystem of firmware hacks due to the architecture of the system.”. I feel this is an ambitious take, but the Chromatic does really want to be a statement piece alongside its library. Even going so far as saying:” We want to see a renaissance of classic games with colorization, light remastering etc. to pass down to our children. For example, in our work with Toki Tori the original developers decided to speed up the character by 2x, drastically improving the gameplay of an already great game at no expense to the authentic experience. Imagine colored mega man V and other games with quality of life improvements which aren’t released by rom hackers but sanctioned by the original dev and provide them compensation for their work”.

As far as first impressions go, I am incredibly scared that I will turn into a mouthpiece for ModRetro with the Chromatic. This device is the real deal, a Swiss Watch equivalent for the Game Boy. Where each part on the in- and outside has been treated with the utmost care. I am a big fan of the Game Boy, and nothing truly beats playing games designed for this device in the best way possible. I thought I had it with my modded Game Boys, I thought I had that with the Analogue Pocket, but I am starting to feel that the Chromatic might actually raise the bar for experiencing Game Boy in the most authentic and modern way possible. This prototype was a joy to behold and even more improvements are being finalized as the device will make its way to market later this year. I cannot wait to give it the full rundown when it releases and see a wave of reappreciation for these classic and new games come in.