The verdict

2 min read

Retrogaming distros

Batocera is quick to install and configure, and it’s a joy to get stuck into when it’s time to sit down B and explore and play a large game collection. The music and presentation are excellent, and the game navigation system is as smooth as the corners on a firstgen Commodore 64. It’s not a tweaker’s delight, but a few additions can be made to the system, and quite a lot of changes can be made to how it looks and works thanks to the extensive theme options.

RetroPie has all the advantages of being the closest of the bunch to a standard Debian Linux distribution under the hood. You can even add a standard desktop to it. For this and other reasons, RetroPie is the ideal setup if you want an optimised retrogaming experience but you would like to add your own customisations at a later point. On a desktop PC, it’s a little more complicated to get it going because it requires the installation and setup of some software. On the Raspberry Pi, it’s as easy to install as any of the other options.

Recalbox has an adorable, pixel art look throughout. The installation is dead simple, and the configuration options are kept to the essentials. Basically, all you have to do is get your controller set up and start scrolling through the built-in games. It even has the Kodi media centre built in and ready to go. It’s not as orientated towards customisation as some of the other options looked at here, though.

Lakka is a good system, but we felt that it was a step or two behind the other ones when it came to polish and extra features. It has a plain, monochromatic interface, and we found there was often an extra click or two to get things done. It’s based on good technologies, such as Linux, RetroArch and Libretro, but it lacks some of the refinement and style on offer in some of the other options in this Roundup.

If you install RetroArch to an existing Linux setup, it is up to you to handle many aspects of the customisation yourself. However, although there is a lot of configuration, it can generally be done from within the RetroArch interface. The actual setup of the underlying distribution is left to you, though. The end result of a raw RetroArch setup lacks polish, but it’s perfectly usable from a controller on a TV.