The Analogue Pocket is one of our favorite retro gaming handhelds. It's also one of the most limited out of the box because it isn't intended to emulate game ROMs, unlike most other retro handhelds. Instead, it's designed to play original cartridges from the Game Boy, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance (as well as Atari Lynx, Neo Geo Pocket Color, and Sega Game Gear with adapters). You can't just load a microSD card filled with ROMs and play them on the Analogue Pocket.

However, Analogue made the Pocket's FPGA hardware open to developers with openFPGA, letting anyone create their own cores and software for the handheld. And almost immediately, someone has effectively "unlocked" the Pocket with a new app that can read ROMs off of a microSD card. That developer is Spiritualized1997 on Github, and they released these cores barely a day after openFPGA was enabled by the Pocket's v1.1 firmware update. This effectively transforms the Pocket into one of the best emulation handhelds (at least for games and systems up to the GBA).

We can't tell you how to get these ROMs outside of perhaps acquiring the hardware necessary to pull them off of your own physical cartridge collection, but we can tell you how to get the Analogue Pocket ready to play them. All you need is a PC and a microSD card.

Before you can load custom cores on the Analogue Pocket, you must install the latest firmware that enables openFPGA core installation. Download the most recent firmware file from Analogue's site to your PC. Currently, it's v1.1 [Beta], which you can download here. The file name is pocket_firmware_3_B.bin. There's also a step-by-step guide to updating the firmware here, but we're already walking you through it.

Get a microSD card, and format it as exFAT or FAT32. It needs to be empty for the firmware update to process.

Drag and drop onto the card. Simple as that.

The microSD card slot is on the right side of the device, just above the right trigger button. With the system off, pop in the card. Then press and hold the power button until the system turns on.

The firmware update process is automatic, and it takes a few minutes to complete. Just make sure that the Pocket's battery is full or the system is plugged in and charging, so there isn't any risk of losing power.

Spiritualized1997's Github page has two projects currently on it: the openFPGA GB&GBC core and the openFPGA GBA core. These respectively enable playing Game Boy/Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance ROMs.

Download the latest release from the Releases section on the right side of each project's page. Extract them both, with directory structures intact.

Remove the microSD card from the Pocket, and put it back in your computer. You can delete the firmware update file at this point.

Copy the contents of both core files' extracted directories to the microSD card's main folder. All three directories should have subdirectories that say Assets, Core, and Platforms. Make sure that's the case before you drag and drop; the cores won't work if they aren't copied to the correct paths.

This is where we can't really tell you where to find what you need. Both the GB/GBC and GBA cores require BIOS files for their respective systems, and you must hunt those down yourself. It's the same with game ROMs.

When you do get those files, copy all Game Boy and Game Boy Color files to the Assets/gbc/common folder, and all Game Boy Advance files to the Assets/gba/common folder.

Pop the microSD card back into the Analogue Pocket, and turn on the system. Select openFPGA, then your system of choice. Under Run, you can load any compatible ROMs you put on the card. Now, enjoy your favorite games.

For more on retro gaming, check out The Best Retro Gaming Consoles and The Best Retro Gaming Handhelds.