- NES-inspired design
- Giant D-Pad
- Great battery life
The NES holds space in a lot of retro gamers' minds as being one of their first consoles and being one that very much inspired them to be gamers to this day. 8BitDo has released the Retro Cube 2 Speaker, which is a smaller, square speaker that is inspired by the NES, following similar colours and buttons.
The Retro Cube 2 Speaker is a square speaker that can move around your house easily. It's a decent size but not too big that you cannot move it around. The design of it is meant to look like the original controller's action buttons, including a huge D-Pad, which is used as the primary button controls on the speaker itself.
One side of the D-Pad controls the volume. There is a pause/play button and an on/off button on the top and bottom. In the middle of the D-Pad, you can press the circle to change from music mode to game mode. The speaker announces what mode it's changed to. This design really shines on the speaker. The Retro Cube 2 Speaker does feel like a very well-made speaker, with the larger D-Pad buttons being easy to press and satisfying.
This cube sits on top of a wireless charging pad, where the feet of the speaker rest on the stand. The battery life outside of the stand lasts for a full 30 hours at least, which is very good, and it doesn't feel like it takes too long to charge either.
The sound quality on the Retro Cube 2 Speaker is quite nice as well. When you power it on, the cube sings to you, saying 8BitDo out loud, almost like the start of a console. It does a smaller jingle when it's being turned off as well. It's cute and adds to the quality feel of the device. My phone easily connected via Bluetooth, but in the base of the speaker, there is a dongle to connect to devices that don't have Bluetooth normally, so that you can easily connect them using the 2.4G connection.
The speaker itself is on the base-heavy side, which is worth noting. This speaker does have a built-in microphone, so you can receive calls through it and reply, which is absolutely interesting as a speaker.
Often, I find that speakers that are designed to mimic the style of retro devices might fall flat in the actual design of things, when it comes to how well they work or how they feel. The 8BitDo Retro Cube 2 Speaker isn't like that. The whole thing feels quality and well-made - a great speaker for those who are fans of the NES and want to have something unique yet functional in their gaming space.
8BitDo Retro Cube 2 Speaker review - "Retro look, modern sound"
The Retro Cube 2 Speaker is a fantastic little speaker, with good sound quality, great battery life, and a fun giant D-Pad to move stuff around.
Jupiter Hadley
Jupiter is a prolific indie game journalist with a focus on smaller indie gems. She covers thousands of game jams and indie games on her YouTube channel, letting every game have a moment in the spotlight. She runs indiegamejams.com, a calendar of all of the game jams going on in the world, and judges many jams and events. You can find her on Twitter as @Jupiter_Hadley