Gaming Mania retro console emulator

The nostalgia of retro gaming for me is huge, I love to watch gamers playing some of my all time fave games on YouTube. I could watch for hours, and Ive myself got 4 retro gaming consoles and sticks that I can boot up any time I like.

But you will always see the new shiny thing when scrolling through Instagram. And I did come across this promotional post that looked out of this world. It literally stopped me in my tracks and made me run to the computer to see the website and games list.

They stopped me using images like this of popular games for example here GTA San Andreas and others Ive seen are Mortal Kombat, Street Fighter, Mario Kart, Golden Axe and so on.

That company was:

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The Product – Mania Link

The sales spiel is good on their website, but vague.
The deal is that you get wireless controllers that look like PS5 controllers, with simple plug and play gaming stick that comes with 40,000 games.

And that’s what you get to the tee.
What my package contained below

Contents:
1* Mania Link™ Stick
2* Wireless Controllers
1* Wireless Signal Receiver
1* USB Charging Cable
1* HDMI Extension Cable
1* Memory Card
and the box it came in with some hard to read instructions.

I spent 40 hours trying to enjoy this product and giving it a fair go to recreate the nostalgia that made me buy it in the first place and I gotta say Im finding it real hard to give this product a 2 stars.

My rating of this product based on my shopping experience from start to finish is 2 stars.

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Let’s shoot the sh#t on this product.

I was hyped to order it, and was monitoring that tracking link daily.
I had read a lot of people paid and never got the delivery so I was also skeptical I would ever see it but I did get a delivery just over 2 weeks from ordering so that was great.

The box came and I started to set it up and this is where I got stuck.
The instructions are not clear, its really hard to interpret the vague instructions and its thanks to Youtube that I even got it to work. It took me over an hour to setup.

Once I was setup I settled in, eyes wide open heartbeat racing to see what games I could play and how many high scores I could get after so long having not played the classics.

The screen interface is ok, it could of been made a lot better for hosting so many consoles and so many games, 40,000 games is massive list to sift through. I was really let down by this and haven’t touched it since I finished the 40hrs testing it.

I had really hoped to find some games that did work that I could play with my daughter so we could tag team like we used to do when she was younger, but I have an arcade board we can use with a lot o these games and in much better working condition.

My take on the Game UI screens

For holding 40,000 games this Ui didn’t work for me, there was way too much scrolling and out of order game titles. They were partly sorted alphabetically but not all of the games were.

You can select by console and then see that consoles game list, but its hard to know whats on what console before you have to scroll 40 pages to find out its on another console. This could of been improved a lot.

Pinning games could of been a nice addition so if you find a game you love or a game that works you can pin it for fast reference.

My take on the Game list

The game list is massive and so is the consoles that they emulate. I was impressed by the games list and before buying I meticulously inspected the list so I knew I would get the games that make retro gaming special to me.

My list of games I really wanted to play:

• Mortal Kombat 1-3
• Street Fighter 1-3
• Golden Axe
• Bubble Bobble
• Mario Kart & Super Mario
• Donkey Kong Country
• WWF No Mercy & WWF Wrestlemania 2000
• NBA Jam
• Earthworm Jim
• TMNT Turtles in Time
• Gran Turismo
• GTA 1
• Tony Hawks pro skater
• XMEN
• And way more

My take on the Game play

The games are “good” for about 10 seconds. I found the games laggy AF, the sound on some was like Skrillex and my TV was humping. I played each Morta; Kombat game and every single one of them lagged and my character was beaten because I was lagging or frozen.

I tried playing a range of games and a lot of games let’s use the Nintendo 64 classic No Mercy for an example, it’s not the No Mercy that has earned so much praise I honestly don’t know where they got this game engine from but it’s rank AF. You are not playing an official game this is some Temu x Wish wrestler engine with WWE painted over it.

Please note I have not played all 40,000 games so the game stick may have some really good games but from what I’ve experienced this is a complete turd of a gaming stick and I’m sad that I wasted money, Time and energy in using it.

My take on the hardware controllers and stuff

The most obvious place to start is the controllers, I really thought I purchased a gem when I saw the controllers but they are cheap knock-offs of the PS5 controllers. The sticks are not intuitive at all and the shoulder buttons (R1 R2 etc) and hard so you really have to push down on them. They feel cheap and fragile.

The other cords and the actual stick do what they are intended you wont really touch them once its all set up.

For anyone thinking of buying this

I would urge you to avoid this product, if you have kids you want to share it with you will not get the results you hope for.

Please do your own research. This was a recap of my experience and what I received from Gaming Mania, your experience may be different and we can only hope that they keep refining the product so that they can impress buyers in the future.

If you want a second opinion here is a review from the gaming late show reviewing an identical product.

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