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Ok. I kinda love that this is on the box. It’s the mysterious icon that defined my generation (at least in the US).

Inside and back of the box.

Here’s everything in the box.

It comes with standard alkaline batteries, but you can also use rechargeables. ModRetro is working on a rechargeable battery pack.

Frankly, it’s annoying that it doesn’t ship with that.

This feels SO, SO good in the hands. Far better than I expected. And that's down to the chassis being metal, not plastic. It has heft, it feels durable, built like a tank, but it's not so heavy that it might fatigue you.

The d-pad is just firm enough, clicky, accurate (at least during my time with Tetris). The speaker is loud. The Sapphire screen is super bright! I have zero complaints about the hardware itself, aside from ModRetro shipping it before a rechargeable batt pack was ready.

For my birthday in 1990, I got a Game Boy bundled with Tetris. So there's a TON of warm nostalgic feelings seeing Tetris bundled with the Chromatic. But this is a slight twist on the original, since it adds in both retro and modern mechanics (hard drops, holds, etc). You can play in either mode, and toggle a bunch of options, too.

This is the only launch game I have for the Chromatic, but a handful of others should be here by next week.