The Epyx Collection: Handheld might look like a very hard sell to most consumers out there. This is a collection featuring a handful of games developed by the defunct company Epyx (best known as the creators of Rogue, the game that would eventually spawn the roguelike genre), released specifically for the Atari Lynx. You know, the Lynx. That one handheld by Atari you may have heard about once, but you’ve never played. Or even held onto your hand. With the exception of half a dozen 56 year old retro enthusiasts, who would this collection appeal towards? Who would have had an Atari Lynx back in his/her childhood, and would even know the games included in this collection in order to give a fair assessment as to whether or not they have been properly remastered?

Well… it just turns out I had a Lynx as a kid. It was actually the first system I’ve ever owned, and I still have it to this day. Signed by Nolan Bushnell (the founder of Atari) and all that. I grew up with some of these games, and was actually excited to play them in a more modern system, ensuring they’d finally be preserved in a more accessible manner. The Epyx Collection: Handheld felt incredibly appealing to me, to a borderline “we’ve made this for YOU” manner. I just needed to find out if Pixel Games UK had managed to properly port these bad boys to more modern hardware, and add the necessary quality of life features to make it more accessible to younger audiences.

Alright, now that we’ve set what to expect from The Epyx Collection: Handheld, let’s talk about the kinds of games the Lynx was famous for. Even though it was released pretty much alongside the Game Boy, it was vastly superior to it in terms of hardware: it was more powerful, it had a backlit screen, it could display color, it had more buttons, and it had more sound channels. As a result, it was vastly bulkier (you couldn’t carry it anywhere other than a suitcase) and expensive.

It tried to offer toned-down experiences you’d see in 16-bit machines, instead of straight ports of 8-bit games, which would have been a better fit. Lynx games had lots of colors, pseudo-3D effects, and excessively detailed graphics for such a small screen, resulting in a small playing field and a lot of framerate issues in its games. That doesn’t mean the system didn’t have its fair share of cult hits and hidden gems. With the exception of Chip’s Challenge (a Sokoban-like puzzle game) and the excellent port of Ninja Gaiden, these hits are all included in The Epyx Collection: Handheld.

The emulation is decent enough, with most of the bells and whistles you’d expect from a retro compilation. As I own a Lynx, I could compare these rereleases with the original games. By using an intentionally crappy LCD filter, yep, it’s as blurry as vaguely unpleasant to look at as the Lynx’s original screen, and the soundtrack is kept identical. Slowdowns are still everywhere, which is a bummer, but then again, accurate to the original ROMs. There are multiple savefiles for each game, and a pretty good rewind function is also available. Everything you would expect from a collection by M2 or Digital Eclipse.

There is one big gripe, though. I couldn’t find a way to reduce the screen’s size, resulting in perpetually stretched pixels on a screen that is way too big for a Lynx title. Those games already looked quite stretched on the Lynx’s minuscule screen, as they were trying to convey a lot of detail on reduced aspect ratios, so having them stretch beyond the acceptable even more on the Switch just doesn’t look good enough. Don’t even dare to play this collection on docked mode, by the way. I just wish there were more resolution and aspect ratio options, that’s all.

Thankfully, the library at my disposal isn’t bad at all. It encompasses six titles of varying genres, with the sports minigame collection California Games being the most famous title in this package. Other neat titles include Blue Lightning, which was a very impressive attempt at making an 8-bit portable from 1989 run its own take on Sega’s After Burner, and Electrocop, possibly the first third person shooter of all time… one released on an 8-bit machine, mind you. The latter isn’t exactly the easiest game to pick up and play, but it’s really impressive for its time.

But if there is one highlight to this collection, that game is called Gates of Zendocon. Have you ever heard about it? I’m sure you haven’t. On paper, it doesn’t look impressive: it’s yet another 2D space shooter released on an era saturated with those damn things. Hooray, another Gradius clone. Why should I care about it? Well, it just slaps. Really freaking hard.

More than just a cool shooter with an amazing soundtrack and neat character designs, it’s also one of, if not the first shooter with branching paths ever created. Years before Star Fox, mind you. Levels have multiple exits, which lead you to brand new levels, which might have branching paths of their own. The game had more than 50 levels way back in 1989, with literal thousands of possible playthroughs as a result. Add in the fact you barely have any powerups to care about, and you can even damage enemies with the flames coming out of your ship’s thrusters, and you get an easygoing, but deeply engaging shooter as a result. I was shocked to find out it still holds the hell up, after all these years.

What about extras? Are there any? Well, The Epyx Collection: Handheld is no Rare Replay, but there are some. There are recreations of each instruction manual, some additional galleries, and a neat little easter egg which can be found on each 3D recreation of those games’ boxes. I am not going to spoil what’s in there, but I do appreciate the inclusion, as minute as it was.

I’m not going to say that The Epyx Collection: Handheld is an easy recommendation, but it’s a fantastic opportunity for retro gaming enthusiasts to experience a few hidden gems which had previously only been available on a very obscure, but very underrated portable system. You may think this collection is a waste of time because nobody (aside from me and half a dozen other weirdos) owned a Lynx back in the day, but games like Gates of Zendocon and Blue Lightning are still amazing, more than 35 years later. Absolute classics aren’t the only games that deserve a second chance and preservation on modern systems. Obscure titles you had never even heard of before also deserve some love, and this collection delivers on this aspect.

Graphics: 5.5 I wish there were more resolution options. The games look way too stretched onscreen, even though they don’t look bad at all for 8-bit standards of the day.	Gameplay: 7.0 Good emulation, simple controls, but quite a lot of framerate issues. That is not due to the quality of the ports: the games themselves ran poorly at times back in the day. Save states are plentiful, and there is a rewind funcion.
Sound: 5.5 Gates of Zendocon features a good soundtrack for the time. The other games… not so much, sadly.	Fun Factor: 8.0 You may think this collection is a waste of time because nobody owned a Lynx back in the day, but games like Gates of Zendocon and Blue Lightning are still amazing, more than 35 years later.
Final Verdict: 7.0

The Epyx Collection: Handheld is available now on Switch.

Reviewed on Switch.

A copy of The Epyx Collection: Handheld was provided by the publisher.