what the hell is up with the Atari Lynx?

[fishboneKiller]

i swear, i hear people talk about the gameboy, i hear some talk about the game gear, hell, i love the wonderswan for its pretty impressive ports of stuff like clock tower and the final fantasy games... but i NEVER hear a peep about the Lynx. i think the singular time ive seen this thing in action is when Gordo 106 was played at AGDQ2019, and that's it. so, i beg the question: what the hell was up with the Atari Lynx? are there ANY notable games for it? and why does it have two sets of A and B buttons??

 

[DunkeyKong]

Ah Atari Lynx, this cute little brick. It has a pretty good amount of library of games (71). Have some pretty good games like Double Dragon, Rygar and the others that I haven't seen yet

 

[YoBoyNikki]

the atari lynx pretty much sucks, it couldnt compete with the likes of nintendo or sega so theres barely any game on it to begin with, let alone a good one

 

[Eclipse14]

Third-party support being minimal, and the Game Boy/Game Gear being a much better product as a whole. It actually had less battery runtime than the Game Gear (4-5 hours, compared to the Game Gear's 5-7), let alone the Game Boy. To no one's surprise, it got blown out of the water with a nuclear bomb.

The only notable game I can truly think of is Ninja Gaiden, and that's because it was unique among the console/handheld versions in that it ported the arcade original format, rather than the NES-style platformer.

 

[Lee__Kanker]

It's so powerful yet has so few original games..

Its almost only ports :/

 

[Stingy Perry]

Too bad Atari discontinued the Lynx to focus on the Jaguar.

 

[MasterEn]

i swear, i hear people talk about the gameboy, i hear some talk about the game gear, hell, i love the wonderswan for its pretty impressive ports of stuff like clock tower and the final fantasy games... but i NEVER hear a peep about the Lynx. i think the singular time ive seen this thing in action is when Gordo 106 was played at AGDQ2019, and that's it. so, i beg the question: what the hell was up with the Atari Lynx? are there ANY notable games for it? and why does it have two sets of A and B buttons??

as long as i have been gaming, i never heard of the atari lynx until the late 2010's when i started watching AVGN. itmost likely just flew under the radar. i didn't about the wonderswan until i was reading up on FFIV a few years ago.

 

[Nebulon_Galaxy]

Atari Lynx and the Jaguar are so cool. The Atari Jaguar supports component and that by itself is impressive

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

It's got the same problem as the 7800: great console, yet minimal support. It was Nintendo's and SEGA'S turf now.

As a kid, you heard about Mario and Sonic, but were unlikely to even remember Atari's heroes, so the market by and large ignored this juggernaut.

 

[bjork]

I could be mistaken, but I think it was the first place Chip's Challenge came out, and it's a good version. The Lynx also has Gauntlet: The Third Encounter which has some weird character classes (pirate, nerd, etc) and you hold the Lynx sideways in a tate mode kind of thing? Awesome Golf is pretty serviceable, decent ports of stuff like Joust and Rampage. Checkered Flag is okay as well.

I don't think the Lynx is necessarily bad, it just doesn't have the games people know because so few people had it. Going back and emulating some of it, it gave me a better perspective on it.

 

[Merchant]

i swear, i hear people talk about the gameboy, i hear some talk about the game gear, hell, i love the wonderswan for its pretty impressive ports of stuff like clock tower and the final fantasy games... but i NEVER hear a peep about the Lynx. i think the singular time ive seen this thing in action is when Gordo 106 was played at AGDQ2019, and that's it. so, i beg the question: what the hell was up with the Atari Lynx? are there ANY notable games for it? and why does it have two sets of A and B buttons??

neo geo pocket and wonderswan are good consoles... are there any good games on the lynx? Im super curious, thats one thing about rom culture that is great, we all know that every console has atleast one good game. The virtual boy games are great!

 

[tigg]

I sadly have never owned a Lynx, not from the lack of trying through these many years. I hear great things about it

 

[Klonoa7]

The Lynx was one of those systems that you forgot about in the early 90’s and continued to forget about in the 2020’s. ?

It will be the year 2030 when someone goes “Hey, remember the Atari Lynx?” and my sentiments will be the same: “Oh, that overpriced piece of sh**?”

 

[DanVzare]

There's like... one decent game in its entire library. Any other halfway decent games, can be played on something better.

Kind of sad that it was so underutilized though.

 

[Yousef]

Maybe it had a few too many drinks.

 

[Zooey]

Its quite simple, if your handheld didnt have Pokemon, then it didnt survive.

 

[MasterEn]

Its quite simple, if your handheld didnt have Pokemon, then it didnt survive.

what about the psp? it didn't have pokemon.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24]

what about the psp? it didn't have pokemon.

This is an oversimplification. Let's set the record straight:

If your handheld didn't have Pokemon or Monster Hunter, it wouldn't survive.

 

[Zooey]

what about the psp? it didn't have pokemon.

I think PSP had a few things going for it:
1. It was made by Sony, and by then Sony was reliable.
2. It had a great selection of games.
3. It had a web browser.
4. It came out a bit after Pokemania had ended.

But for the rest? Wonderswan, Lynx, Game Gear, etc. The game libraries were terrible. The Wonderswan never made it to the US. The Lynx and Game Gear had terrible libraries and sucked batteries down. Keep in mind these had to compete during the height of Pokemania. My feeling is that if the Game Gear and Lynx only had to compete with Tetris, they would've had a slightly easier time.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24]

Okay, so, I've played some Lynx stuff. It's good! Not great. It doesn't have a single game which is "the game" for it. It's just good. Most of the cool part is the actual hardware, because the software is kind of boring.


For reference, the Jaguar is a better platform to me because at least it has Tempest 2000, Alien Vs Predator, Rayman, and a couple more that I can name. Even its BAD games are still NOTABLY bad. The Lynx is just boring. It has nothing. But the system itself is the cool part.

 

[MasterEn]

I think PSP had a few things going for it:
1. It was made by Sony, and by then Sony was reliable.
2. It had a great selection of games.
3. It had a web browser.
4. It came out a bit after Pokemania had ended.

But for the rest? Wonderswan, Lynx, Game Gear, etc. The game libraries were terrible. The Wonderswan never made it to the US. The Lynx and Game Gear had terrible libraries and sucked batteries down. Keep in mind these had to compete during the height of Pokemania. My feeling is that if the Game Gear and Lynx only had to compete with Tetris, they would've had a slightly easier time.

my question was meant to be more of a joke. i quite enjoyed the psp, i wore 2 of them out. very good games, [dissidia, disgaea, ff1, 2, 4, crisis core, half minute hero]. it was my first mp3 player and i watched quite a few mp4s on it too.
"My feeling is that if the Game Gear and Lynx only had to compete with Tetris, they would've had a slightly easier time." probably. tetris is alright in short bursts. i play some from time to time. pokemon, i played red and gold too many times to count.

 

[Zooey]

my question was meant to be more of a joke. i quite enjoyed the psp, i wore 2 of them out. very good games, [dissidia, disgaea, ff1, 2, 4, crisis core, half minute hero]. it was my first mp3 player and i watched quite a few mp4s on it too.
"My feeling is that if the Game Gear and Lynx only had to compete with Tetris, they would've had a slightly easier time." probably. tetris is alright in short bursts. i play some from time to time. pokemon, i played red and gold too many times to count.

One thing to consider is that, not only was Pokemon hugely popular when it first came out. But it also encouraged people to buy 2 copies of the game: Blue Red, Gold Silver, etc. And on top of that it also led to people buying multiple GameBoys for trading. The Lynx and GameGear would need a miracle to compete with that kind of energy.

 

[MasterEn]

One thing to consider is that, not only was Pokemon hugely popular when it first came out. But it also encouraged people to buy 2 copies of the game: Blue Red, Gold Silver, etc. And on top of that it also led to people buying multiple GameBoys for trading. The Lynx and GameGear would need a miracle to compete with that kind of energy.

yeah, i'm familiar with the 2 version gimmick. that help kill most of my interest in the later games.

 

[TamagotchiTamaHero24]

Here's another thing: portables are best when their software is designed to be playable in a portable setting. The issue with GG and Lynx (and even the PSP and Vita) was that they tried to bring the console experience to the handheld market. WHICH IS AWESOME... for gamers. For very casual people who will probably only buy 2-5 games for a system, it isn't as appealing in the long term. It's cool up front, but it sorta forces you to play the system in a console-like setting because the best games on handhelds are designed around the idea of you getting in and playing for 5 minutes, as well as being able to play for 1000's of hours. VERY FEW GAMES CAN TRULY DO BOTH.

Post automatically merged: Feb 10, 2025

yeah, i'm familiar with the 2 version gimmick. that help kill most of my interest in the later games.

Legends Arceus is very fun :)

 

[MasterEn]

Legends Arceus is very fun :)

besides mystery dungeon, it's the only one that looked interesting to me.
i'll get to someday.