Retron 5 (aka 4)

[TyrannicalFascist]

GOT ONE! Last one the store had too.

Overall I'm happy with it, some cart slots have a tight grip, but I think that may improve over time. I sure like the clarity and the ability to do save states and fast forward, though the Retron controller is just....blech... The only times I could see myself using it are 1. When playing an RPG or 2. When the 8-way stick would benefit, like all those isometric GBA games. I've been using an SNES controller and I don't believe there's any lag in input, it feels just like my real SNES. And there's just something so right about playing SNES, NES, GB, GBC and GBA games with that controller.

I'll be trying all of my games over the next few days. I'm a little hesitant to try a handful that have childhood save games I don't want to lose, like Mario RPG, as there have been occasional reports of people losing save games when trying to copy them over. In most cases, the saves seem to still be on the cart as you can access them on the original system, but there are a few instances of actual save game wipes. I've colored the working but problematic saves below.

WORKS

NES
-Adventures in the Magic Kingdom _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Dr. Mario _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-DuckTales _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-The Legend of Zelda _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Super Mario Bros. _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt/World Class Track Meet _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Super Mario Bros. 2 _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Super Mario Bros. 3 _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Yoshi _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Yoshi's Cookie _{- Recognized, worked fine}

SNES
-Batman Returns _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Donkey Kong Country _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Donkey Kong Country 2 _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Donkey Kong Country 3 _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-The Great Circus Mystery - Starring Mickey Mouse _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Indiana Jones' Greatest Adventures _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-The Magical Quest - Starring Mickey Mouse _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Mario's Time Machine _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Mario is Missing _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Mario Paint _{- Recognized, worked fine, mouse can be used to navigate menus as well}
-Mighty Morphin Power Rangers _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Pilotwings _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Star Fox _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Super Mario All-Stars _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Super Mario Kart _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Super Mario World _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save - one graphical glitch: on World 1-7 "Touch Fuzzy, Get Dizzy", when touching a Fuzzy, the background freaks out way more than it should on the original system}
-Super Star Wars _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Super Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Super Star Wars: Return of the Jedi _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Yoshi's Cookie _{- Recognized, worked fine}

GENESIS
-Aladdin _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Batman _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Earthworm Jim _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Mighty Morphin Power Rangers _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Mighty Morphin Power Rangers The Movie _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Sonic the Hedgehog _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Sonic the Hedgehog 2 _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Sonic the Hedgehog 3 _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Sonic Spinball _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Sonic 3D Blast _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Sonic & Knuckles _{- Recognized, worked fine, can only lock-on to Sonic 1, 2, 3 and Sonic Classics}
-Sonic & Knuckles + Sonic the Hedgehog _{- Recognized, worked fine, came up as the "No Way? No Way! Blue Sphere game as expected.}
-Sonic & Knuckles + Sonic the Hedgehog 2 _{- Unknown Cart, went to black screen}
-Sonic & Knuckles + Sonic the Hedgehog 3 _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Street Fighter II' - Special Championship Edition _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-ToeJam & Earl _{- Recognized, worked fine}

GAME BOY
-Donkey Kong '94 _{- Recognized, worked fine, my battery died a while back}
-Donkey Kong Land _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Donkey Kong Land 2  _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Donkey Kong Land III _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-F-1 Race _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Game & Watch Gallery _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Kirby's Dream Land _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Kirby's Dream Land 2 _{- Recognized, worked fine, battery was dead when I got it}
-Pokémon Red Version _{- Recognized, worked fine, my battery died a while back}
-Pokémon Blue Version _{- Recognized, worked fine, my battery died a while back}
-Pokémon Yellow Version _{- Recognized, worked fine, my battery died a while back}
-Super Mario Land _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Super Mario Land 2 _{- Recognized, worked fine, lost save!}
-Super Mario Land 3: Wario Land _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Wario Land II (GB version) _{- Recognized, worked fine, doesn't recognize my save but cart still has it}
-Wave Race _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Yoshi (GB) _{- Recognized, worked fine}

GAME BOY COLOR
-Donkey Kong Country _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Donald Duck - Goin' Quackers (GBC) _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Game & Watch Gallery 2 _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Game & Watch Gallery 3 _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX _{- Recognized, worked fine, doesn't recognize my save but cart still has it - when trying to copy save to Retron it says "This cartridge either has no save data, or accessing its save data is currently unsupported."}
-The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained saves}
-Mickey's Speedway USA _{- Recognized, worked fine, doesn't recognize my save but cart still has it}
-Pokémon Gold Version _{- Recognized, worked fine, my battery died a while back}
-Pokémon Silver Version _{- Recognized, worked fine, my battery died a while back}
-Pokémon Crystal Version _{- Recognized, worked fine, my battery died a while back}
-Pokémon Trading Card Game _{- Recognized, worked fine, doesn't recognize my save but cart still has it}
-Star Wars Episode I Racer _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Super Mario Bros. Deluxe _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Wario Land 3 _{- Recognized, worked fine, doesn't recognize my save but cart still has it}

GAME BOY ADVANCE
-Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge _{- Recognized, worked fine, lost save!}
-Banjo-Pilot _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Crash Bandicoot: The Huge Adventure _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Crash Bandicoot 2: N-Tranced _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Crash Nitro Kart _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Disney's Magical Quest 2 _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Drill Dozer _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-F-Zero: Maximum Velocity _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Game & Watch Gallery 4 _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Lord of the Rings: Return of the King _{- Recognized, worked fine, lost save!}
-Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Mario vs. Donkey Kong _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Mario Kart: Super Circuit _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Pac-Man Collection _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Pokémon LeafGreen Version _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Pokémon Naranja Version (Bootleg) _{- Unknown cartridge, however worked fine}
-Sonic Advance _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Sonic Advance 2 _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Sonic Advance 3 _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Sonic Battle _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Spyro: Season of Ice _{- Recognized, worked fine, may have lost save?}
-Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones _{- Recognized, played fine but for some reason the flying drones in level 1 are red and white??}
-Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Star Wars: Flight of the Falcon _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Star Wars: The New Droid Army _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Star Wars Trilogy: Apprentice of the Force _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Super Mario Advance _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Super Mario Advance 3: Yoshi's Island _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3 _{- Recognized, loaded "Game Boy Player" screen, then got stuck on "Reading..." screen for a while, notification that save data is corrupted and didn't recognize save, however it is still present on my cartridge}
-Wario Land 4 _{- Recognized, worked fine, save did not appear on Retron, upon reinserting into GBA it said File A was lost. Oddly, File B was fine.}
-WarioWare, Inc. - Mega Microgame$! _{- Recognized, worked fine, retained save}
-WarioWare: Twisted! _{- Recognized, but obviously you can't play it without tilt controls}

GAME BOY ADVANCE VIDEO
-Pokemon Vol. 1 (A Hot Water Battle!, For Ho-Oh the Bells Toll!) _{- Recognized, worked fine}
-Pokemon Vol. 3 (Pokémon, I Choose You!, Here Comes the Squirtle Squad!) _{- Recognized, worked fine}

DIDN'T WORK
-Bootleg GB and GBA multicarts are hit and miss _{- comes up as unknown and in some I could access the selection menu but not the games within, others I could select a game, but when resetting, I couldn't}
-Joshua (GB by Wisdom Tree) _{- didn't even acknowledge there was a cart inserted}
-Sonic Adventure 7 (GB pirate) _{- Unknown cartridge, blank screen}
-Reproduction Super Mario Bros. 2J for NES _{- didn't even acknowledge there was a cart inserted}
-Reproduction Super Mario Bros. Special for NES _{- didn't even acknowledge there was a cart inserted}

As JDavis stated, I've found that sometimes it says Unknown cart, and then it works after a little cleaning of the cartridge contacts. Also I've noticed some games take longer to load than others. I haven't noticed any pattern why. Even then the load times are very minimal, no more than 10 seconds tops so far.

SLOT GRIPS:
-Famicom - don't have any to test
-NES - has a serious death grip
-SNES - has a tiny grip
-Genesis - has somewhat of a tough grip
-GBA - perfect

TESTED CONTROLLERS:
-SNES
-SNES Mouse (can also be used to navigate menu)

[JDavis]

I've noticed some games not importing the saves, but the saves are still on the cart when put in the original system. Still, better safe than sorry, I guess. I can confirm that Super Mario RPG works, and imported my saves safely. If you have any other games you're curious about, just ask, I may have tested them already.

I'm about halfway through my NES games (91 tested so far). One surprise I've come across, which confirms what they've said about the first firmware update beginning their support of homebrew games, is that Battle Kid now works! Battle Kid 2 still doesn't, though, and neither do my NWC or Mr. Gimmick repros from the same site. Other than those, I've only run across 8 NES games that didn't work on the first try, but once I've gone through the rest I'll give them a thorough cleaning and try them again. When I'm done I'll post my full list of games tested (it's big).

Oh, and obviously light gun games don't work. I mean, they run perfectly fine, but the Zapper won't work on an HDTV, and the Retron 5 doesn't even seem to recognize the input from it (no screen flash).

And I've noticed something else, which is kind of a minor gripe. Even with the overscan option turned on, which cuts off a little bit of the edges of the game screen to simulate how the frame on a CRT tv covers up some of the graphics, you can still see the garbled graphics along the edge of a lot of NES games. Especially ones that have it on the top/bottom from vertical scrolling (Bionic Commando is a big offender). I went and compared it to the amount that my CRT cuts off from the actual NES, and the Retron's overscan leaves about 8 more pixels at the top and bottom of the screen than my CRT does, BUT it cuts off more of the left/right than my TV does (most easily noticable in Castlevania, which runs its HUD all the way to the edge). I contacted Hyperkin about this, and suggested if possible having multiple levels of overscan available, as well as making Gameboy/Color/Advance games not affected by the overscan settings at all (because Gameboys don't have an overscan area and it tends to cut off important information on those games).

[TyrannicalFascist]

That's a great suggestion. I've noticed the garbled edges on NES games as well.

That's a relief on Mario RPG. Here are the other games I'm concerned about:

GB-GBA
-Donkey Kong ('94 remake)
-Mario & Luigi Super Star Saga
-Mario Kart Super Circuit
-Sonic Advance 1-3
-Super Mario Bros. Deluxe
-Super Mario Advance 1-4
-Super Mario Land 2
-Wario Land 1-3

SNES
-Super Mario Kart
-Super Mario World
-Yoshi's Island

I'll have to check some of the ones that seemed to lose their saves on the original systems.

Also, has Hyperkin made the cheat database available yet?

[Ozzy_98]

The problem when you mess with overscan, unless you're just chopping\hiding the pixels (What you should be doing), you're stretching the image.  Stretching from 256 x 240 to 1080p is one thing, but stretching the raw image from 256x240 from 256x239 means you'll have to have one doubled pixel or use halftones on the whole thing.  I was thinking it was FCEUltra that first started having nice overscan controls on all 4 sides.

[JDavis]

That's a great suggestion. I've noticed the garbled edges on NES games as well.

That's a relief on Mario RPG. Here are the other games I'm concerned about:

GB-GBA
-Donkey Kong ('94 remake)
-Mario & Luigi Super Star Saga
-Mario Kart Super Circuit
-Sonic Advance 1-3
-Super Mario Bros. Deluxe
-Super Mario Advance 1-4
-Super Mario Land 2
-Wario Land 1-3

SNES
-Super Mario Kart
-Super Mario World
-Yoshi's Island

I'll have to check some of the ones that seemed to lose their saves on the original systems.

Also, has Hyperkin made the cheat database available yet?

I can confirm most of those as working. I don't have Super Circuit, Sonic Advance 2-3, Mario Advance 1-3, or Wario Land 2.

My Donkey Kong '94 and SML2 have bad batteries, so I can't confirm anything on them.

M&L:SSS, SMB:DX, Sonic Advance, SML3:Wario Land, Super Mario Kart, and Super Mario World import their saves no problem.

Wario Land 3 won't import its save data, but it didn't erase what's on the cart either. If I try to manually import the save to the Retron 5, it says "This cartridge either has no save data, or accessing its save data is currently unsupported"

Super Mario Advance 4 imports the save, but when you try to play it the first time you get a message from the game that the save data is corrupted, the end result being the same as if it didn't import it at all.

Yoshi's Island... I initially believed to be working fine, but on further review it's only semi-working. It imports the save file fine, but selecting some of the levels causes it to freeze on a black screen. Resetting the game either doesn't work (freezes, sometimes with glitched Nintendo Presents screen) or greets you with three empty save files. Import the save again to return to square one.

The problem when you mess with overscan, unless you're just chopping\hiding the pixels (What you should be doing), you're stretching the image.  Stretching from 256 x 240 to 1080p is one thing, but stretching the raw image from 256x240 from 256x239 means you'll have to have one doubled pixel or use halftones on the whole thing.  I was thinking it was FCEUltra that first started having nice overscan controls on all 4 sides.

Yeah, that's a separate thing. I didn't notice any weird stretching of the image initially, but the more I've played on the system, I can definitely see that with the default settings some pixels aren't as wide as others, because objects seem to waver a bit when scrolling horizontally. Using the "force original resolution" option fixed this... until I turned on overscan. Because the overscan option is cropping the edges off, and then the resulting smaller image is being stretched to the pre-cropped size. I'll add it to my list of suggestions for Hyperkin to fix.

[TyrannicalFascist]

I can confirm most of those as working. I don't have Super Circuit, Sonic Advance 2-3, Mario Advance 1-3, or Wario Land 2.

My Donkey Kong '94 and SML2 have bad batteries, so I can't confirm anything on them.

M&L:SSS, SMB:DX, Sonic Advance, SML3:Wario Land, Super Mario Kart, and Super Mario World import their saves no problem.

Wario Land 3 won't import its save data, but it didn't erase what's on the cart either. If I try to manually import the save to the Retron 5, it says "This cartridge either has no save data, or accessing its save data is currently unsupported"

Super Mario Advance 4 imports the save, but when you try to play it the first time you get a message from the game that the save data is corrupted, the end result being the same as if it didn't import it at all.

Yoshi's Island... I initially believed to be working fine, but on further review it's only semi-working. It imports the save file fine, but selecting some of the levels causes it to freeze on a black screen. Resetting the game either doesn't work (freezes, sometimes with glitched Nintendo Presents screen) or greets you with three empty save files. Import the save again to return to square one.

Thanks. Well I can confirm that a good number of the games that appeared to have lost saves did in fact still retain the saves on the cartridge. I guess for some reason the Retron can't recognize those saves and displays a blank save? I've noted which ones in blue in my above post. There are a small handful which I'm sure had the saves wiped from the cart, and those are noted in red.

I had the exact same issues with Wario Land 3 and Super Mario Advance 4. I wonder if the Super Mario Advance 4 issue is some kind of safeguard against playing the game on anything but a real GBA or the GB Player?

Oddly enough, I also had issues with DK '94 and SML2 which seemed to be battery related. Fortunately I shouldn't have too much trouble playing through them again to get where I was or further.

I'll hold off on testing Yoshi's Island until I see lots of people saying it works fine. I put A LOT of hours into that game as a kid.

I've finished testing all my NES, SNES, Genesis, GB, GBC and GBA games. Next I'll be testing a variety of controllers I have.

[Blumpkin]

Have any of you guys tried testing any pirated/knock off carts? I have a few GBA carts that are Hong Kong specials and wonder if they'll play.

[TyrannicalFascist]

Have any of you guys tried testing any pirated/knock off carts? I have a few GBA carts that are Hong Kong specials and wonder if they'll play.

I have a few, most of them are multicarts. They all come up as Unknown cartridge, but you can still try them. Some of them sort of work - my GBA multicart let me select one of the GBA games from the menu and play it, but others don't - most of my GB multicarts will display the menu, but once you select a game it just reloads the menu. This might be because of how the Retron reads game roms, in the same way it can currently run the Super Game Boy, but not the Game Boy game inserted. The only stand-alone pirate cart I have is Sonic Adventure 7, and that one just loads a blank screen. But it may be possible that all of these could work someday with updates.

I do have Sonic the Hedgehog Genesis for GBA which I picked up at CD Tradepost a year ago and I'm like 99% sure it's a bootleg - it comes up as unknown but plays just fine. So bootlegs of real games probably will work.

EDIT: So having tested all my games except Mario RPG, Yoshi's Island and A Link to the Past (Wiggy's doing some work on the cart), I'm happy to report that it recognized all my legit games! On to testing compatible controllers I have...

[Ozzy_98]

What I'd like is for it to be like my current home setups.  Each game\system has a default setting for video and input, but can override and save settings for each game.  For my arcade machine for example, my joystick I remap the directional sideways for games like Q-Bert, so it plays correctly, none of this sideways left for up-left crap.

[wiggy]

I don't like that they're losing saves here and there :/ Luckly I have a retrode, so I can back them up before I were to stick it in this mystery machine, but that honestly sounds like WAY too much work just to play a SNES/NES/Genesis game. That's my chief complaint with newer consoles (spending an hour dicking around until I can actually play a game).  I sure don't need a retro console to require all that fuss.  Seems more and more like a Raspberry Pi in a custom enclosure or something similar really would be the way to go over this, since the Retron is really just an emulation box with virtually no on-board storage

[Ozzy_98]

That's my chief complaint with newer consoles (spending an hour dicking around until I can actually play a game).  

Very much this.  I hate newer games, I generally have to stop playing and do work before I get to kill anything, let alone reach a save point.

Seems more and more like a Raspberry Pi in a custom enclosure or something similar really would be the way to go over this, since the Retron is really just an emulation box with virtually no on-board storage

The problem I've had with Pis and androids are the emulators themselves seem to be way behind vs Windows and dedicated Linux emulators.  And I'll be the first to say setting up a system so all your systems show up under one common interface is one hell of a project to do (Since I've never FINISHED doing it once) .  But it's been fun over the years making different setups in different frontends:

From the arcade cab



to the mini-cab I never got past the mock-up stage before I changed jobs and had no use for it:

to my old setup on the TV many many years ago:

and the setup I made just for my beloved goldbox AD&D games:


But just think of all the fun you could have making your own screen on your own TV, picking games from a list the way you want to play them.

[JDavis]

Have any of you guys tried testing any pirated/knock off carts? I have a few GBA carts that are Hong Kong specials and wonder if they'll play.

Only pirate cart I have is my Famicom Supervision 76-in-1, which doesn't work.

I don't like that they're losing saves here and there :/ Luckly I have a retrode, so I can back them up before I were to stick it in this mystery machine, but that honestly sounds like WAY too much work just to play a SNES/NES/Genesis game. That's my chief complaint with newer consoles (spending an hour dicking around until I can actually play a game).  I sure don't need a retro console to require all that fuss.  Seems more and more like a Raspberry Pi in a custom enclosure or something similar really would be the way to go over this, since the Retron is really just an emulation box with virtually no on-board storage

It seems to me that most of the "lost save files" people are reporting are simply cases where the Retron 5 couldn't import the save files and the person just saw "oh no my saves aren't here they must be wiped" OR the person hadn't played the game in a while and didn't realize the battery was dead. Normally the Retron 5 only writes to the cart's save files when you specifically tell it to (and it warns you that you'll be overwriting what's on the cart when you do this).


The results are in. After testing all my NES games, cleaning the ones that initially didn't work, and testing those again... I've got only 3 NES games that aren't working. Out of 160. That's ignoring that there's no zapper support, though.

Pinball and the Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt / World Class Track Meet combo cart aren't detected at all; "No cartridge inserted"

Batman: Return of the Joker gives a really odd error message: "ERROR: Cartridge power fault detected." This seems to normally be triggered by putting a cartridge in backwards (the system specifically thinks you may have put an SNES cart in backwards since it's the only slot that easily allows it), but that's not the case here. No idea what's triggering it.

I did confirm that these games are working fine on an actual NES.

These handful I confirmed as working with some minor issues:

Yoshi pulls up as Unrecognized. It seems to play perfectly fine (played it for about 10 minutes)

Deadly Towers gives a weird message: "We recommend another game" with a big frowny face above it. Not sure if this indicates some known incompatibility or if the folks at Hyperkin just really dislike Deadly Towers. You can select to play the game anyway, and it seemed to work fine.

StarTropics and StarTropics 2 - Zoda's Revenge worked fine, but aren't able to import their save files yet.

So, overall, out of my 369 games for the systems the thing supports, about 94% were correctly recognized, booted and played perfectly fine at a cursory glance, and didn't have any obvious weird incompatibility issues. That remaining approximately 6% comes down to stuff that simply won't work anyway (WarioWare Twisted, for example), stuff that can be fixed with firmware updates (Sonic & Knuckles' lock-on stuff, which they're working on), and probably at least some where my carts are just too damaged or dirty beyond my cleaning techniques.

[Ozzy_98]

Everyone dislikes deadly towers.  I tried to play through it again not long ago, but got sick of it and gave up.

Since return of the joker is the only us cart with that chip in it, that may be the issue.  I know people said Mr. gimmick isn't working too.

[UncleBob]

Regarding the "No Zapper Support" - is this because the RetroN only outputs in HDMI, or is it a limitation of the system/emulator that prevents one from using a Zapper with it?

i.e.: If someone had a CRT with HDMI on it, could they play Zapper titles?

[JDavis]

I don't think any CRT with HDMI input would work with zapper games anyway. It's not just a "CRT or not" issue, it's a matter of refresh rates and resolutions and such. Quite a number of CRT tvs that came out during the transition to HDTVs don't work with zapper games. And I don't even think HDMI was a thing yet at that time. DVI might have been.

And even then, the Retron 5 doesn't seem to recognize the input from a zapper as far as I can tell. I plugged one in when testing the zapper games, and the screen didn't even flash when I pulled the trigger.