This Game Boy-style iPhone case has one redeeming feature

Last month, we came across a new phone case, which combines thestyle of a classic Nintendo Game Boy with actual playability. Itcomes with a handful of classic games like Tetris, Tank, Frogger,and others, and it』s certainly aimed at a nostalgic audience. Itlooks like a classic Game Boy: a D-pad, a pair of A/B buttons, andbuttons to turn it on, reset the gameplay, make a selection, andturn the sound on and off. And, of course, it has a squaremonochrome LCD display that mimics the original Game Boy』s screen.The problem is, I can』t really figure out what the point of it is,other than to play Tetris.

The case is called the Wanle Gamers Console For iPhone, designedfor everything between the iPhone 6 and X. I grew up playing a GameBoy, and I』ve been on a bit of a novelty-game-device kick lately(Chris Welch』s review for The Oregon Trail handheld game convincedme to pick one up), and I ended up buying one for my iPhone 8Plus.

The initial experience is... not great. A couple of the gamesare unplayable (push a button, and it』s immediately game over),while a couple of others are indecipherable. While it』s marketed asa sort of Game Boy emulator, this reminded me a bit more of thegames that you might have played on a TI-83 Graphing Calculator inschool, or one of those LCD handheld games. While testing this outand playing through a bunch of the games, I kept wondering why Iwas doing this, rather than simply downloading one of the manyvariations of the games from the App Store. The games here are anostalgic gimmick, and I found myself simply flipping my phone overto go back to playing Alto』s Odyssey, which doesn』t have some ofthe frustrating glitches or gameplay.

There are other issues as well. As a protective case, it』s thinenough to be unobtrusive. I』m not sure I really trust the case toprotect my phone in the event that I actually drop it, and itdoesn』t feel all that well-constructed. The rubber buttons caughtin my pocket, and feel really slow: the D-pad is never asresponsive as I remembered on my original Game Boy, and I』ve lostmost games because they couldn』t keep up with the speed of thegame. The sounds are annoying, too: Tetris just isn』t Tetriswithout that iconic soundtrack.

There is a redeeming feature for this phone, however: while itdoesn』t quite compare to the real thing, the case comes equippedwith some neat Tetris clones. There are a bunch of variations ofthe game — ones that move the blocks side to side, ones that raisethem up every couple of rounds, and, of course, one that emulatesthe classic. While it never feels quite the same as the original,the fact that the case has physical buttons to mash make it abetter alternative to the various Tetris apps that I』ve tried outover the years. It』s just not a touchscreen game for me, and in theweek or so that I』ve been playing with it, it has sucked me in abunch of times while waiting in line at the store or while hangingaround the house. Given that it runs off of a watch battery, itwould make a nice backup if my phone were to die while away from acharger.

At the end of the day, the case is certainly not worth the $80that it was marked down from on Wanle Case』s website, or even the$25 I spent on it. The site is currently sold out, but you can findit online at Amazon for a much more reasonable $11.55. At thatprice, it』s a novelty worth checking out if retro games are reallyyour thing, but I』ll probably go back to my boring, protective casesoon. If I really feel nostalgic, I can always dig out my old GameBoy and enjoy Tetris the way I remember it — soundtrack andall.