Chris InglisThe A500 Mini hit Australian shelves back on April 8, 2022, thanks to Koch Media ANZ and Retro Games, the latter who previously created the C64 Mini. Over the past few years there has been vast interest in releases of mini retro consoles for nostalgia buffs. Not only has it been great to relive memories of when we were much younger and carefree gamers, but also to show new gamers the various consoles who may never have experienced them. This is my experience with the A500 Mini and it’s included 25 classic Amiga HD games like Zool, Speedball 2, California Games and Stunt Car Racer.
I was aware of the Amiga 500 and A1200 consoles growing up through friends, but our family never owned one. The only gaming console we had growing up were the Gameboy and the cheap knock off handhelds my dad bought home from his Singapore trips, and later we got an IBM PC. In speaking to two of my good friends about the Amiga days, one of them mentioned how good Zool, Speedball and California Games were. The other said Kick Off 2 is still one of the best soccer games he’s played, and Another World was ground-breaking for its time, so atmospheric.
Opening the glossy and well-presented box of the A500 Mini, there was the console itself and being the size of my hand, I was impressed with the external detailing and colour matching the original console. The keyboard on the front was disappointingly just for show, however with my big fingers I would have struggled to type correctly anyway. The disk drive and eject button on the side is also just for show, but I was still pleased to see them there giving me a glimpse into the past. The back of the unit has three USB slots, a HDMI slot, and a USB-C slot for power and a clicky power button.
There’s no separate AC adaptor, rather we plug this into a PC or TV that has a USB slot and utilise the provided 1.8m USB-C to A converter cable to power the unit. The unit will output at 50/60Hz in 720p HD via HDMI. The final two pieces in the box were an originally styled 2-button mouse and a newly designed 8-button game controller which fit well in my big hands. I used a mouse like this one on my old IBM PC and a part of me was disappointed that this mouse was optical, not using the old ball mechanism but we have well and truly moved on from that technology.
This is true plug-and-play at it’s best. After connecting the A500 Mini to my PC keyboard for power and monitor via HDMI, it loaded into the home menus quickly and with no fuss. You are given options of 50 or 60Hz and three main display options of fixed size (with fairly large black edges, moderate zoom or screen fit which is what I chose. I tried to hook this up to my Elgato HD60 S+ capture card to give share the 16-bit glory but I couldn’t work out a configuration to get it to pick up the console, so I am making do with progressive photos.
The turn-style menu gives you a brief description and background of each of the 25 preloaded games and we can save and resume these games. We also could use an external USB stick to play other games compatible with WHDLoad, so really this A500 Mini can be your primary oldschool emulation console if you wanted it to. There is a vast community on Facebook that have done some remarkable emulation and modification to their A500 Minis, but many like me are just happy to be able to plug-and-play with the included games.
When I posted on Twitter about receiving this review unit, several people commented with their memories of games they played. Zool: Ninja of the Nth Dimension came up regularly, as did Simon the Sorcerer, so these were the first two games I tried. The controller was the primary method of browsing and interacting with menus. The mouse didn’t function in most games until I was in titles like Simon the Sorcerer. On occasion, the mouse pointer would stop working and the audio would skip, but it was only minor occurrences of this in my testing time.
I can certainly see why I gravitated more to top-down racing games and point-and-click adventure games as a kid. They are just easier to jump in and play rather than to battle the game’s difficulty from the first level. Games were a lot more punishing then too. I had got my character out of the pool in Another World and put the controller down to grab my camera. As I was taking the photo, a tentacle reached out of the water and pool me under – game over. Even today I still struggle with side scrolling platform games but my 30+ years of gaming experience knows it’s just a matter of practice, persistence, and patience. Try telling that to my 10-year-old self who had a short gaming fuse.
Overall, the A500 Mini was a fantastic nostalgic experience, especially with this being my first retro console. I was impressed with the level of detail of the console, mouse, and controller and the ease of plug-and-play made this a joy to play with. The 25-included games were plenty to keep me entertained, and the life of the console is easily extended by using a USB stick to load more games and emulators.
This review utilised a review unit provided by Koch Media ANZ, and the A500 Mini is available to purchase from placed like Amazon and Big W for RRP$199.95 (currently on special for $179 as at time of publishing).
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