Review: Mega Everdrive Pro 7
Image: Damien McFerran / Time Extension

Flash carts have become a vital part of modern-day retro gaming. While collecting is one of the most appealing aspects of our beloved hobby, it isn't without its problems; the more desirable titles are rising in value with each passing year, putting them out of reach for most people. There's also the issue that many games (CD-based ones especially) are prone to failure as the decades roll by. With these points in mind, being able to load up ROMs onto your console via a flash cart is a life-saver—and one man's name dominates the market in 2025: Krikzz.

The Ukrainian modder has been producing the Everdrive series of carts for years now and is considered by many to be the master of the artform. His carts have graced pretty much every retro system you could mention, including NES, SNES, Game Boy, PC Engine, and more. He's now at the stage where he has iterated and improved carts for each console, and the Mega Everdrive Pro is the apex of the product for Sega's Mega Drive / Genesis.

Powered by a Cyclone IV FPGA chip, the Mega Everdrive Pro allows you to store the entire Mega Drive / Genesis library on a single modest MicroSD card. It also allows you to run Sega CD games without the need for the add-on and can also play 32X ROMs (when you have the 32X bolted to the Mega Drive / Genesis). You can also run Master System games (with enhanced FM sound) on select Mega Drive / Genesis hardware (the Sega Nomad, for example, lacks the internal hardware to run Master System titles). On top of all of this, the Mega Everdrive Pro also allows you to emulate NES games on your 16-bit Sega system.

Review: Mega Everdrive Pro 7
Image: Damien McFerran / Time Extension

Running ROMs is hardly a new revelation—as I've already pointed out, flash carts are now an established part of the retro gaming landscape—but the Mega Everdrive Pro comes packed with other features that make it one of the best options on the market.

Firstly, it boasts incredible compatibility with the Mega Drive / Genesis library, including SVP support—so Virtua Racing is perfectly playable. It also supports Terraonion's excellent MD+ audio enhancement system, so you can run modified games with CD-quality soundtracks (MSU-MD is also supported).

Save states are also included here, with a slight catch; there's no way for flash carts to 'capture' the exact moment the in-game audio is paused, so when you load the state up, you'll often find that the music is broken. When the subsequent music track loads, this usually fixes itself, but as a rule, it's always best to create your save state at a point in between a new level or screen so the music starts up at the right point.

An in-game menu system grants access to these save states and a whole host of other options and tweaks, including cheat codes, a real-time clock and the ability to auto-boot to the last game played. You can also apply a custom theme to the cart's main menu, which is a nice touch as the default UI is rather bare-bones.

One of the features I love the most about the Mega Everdrive Pro is the ability to apply IPS patches directly from the cartridge itself, removing the need to patch the ROMs on a computer. As a Mac user, I've always found it frustrating that all of the major game-patching tools are Windows-based, so, as you can imagine, being able to do it on the Mega Everdrive Pro is a real boon for me. All you need to do is make sure the IPS patch file is in the same folder as the ROM (and has the same file name), and it will treat them as two different versions of the same game.

There are a few caveats to note with the Mega Everdrive Pro, and these are issues which Krikzz can't really overcome. For example, you cannot load Sega CD or Master System games when your console is connected to the 32X due to a hardware conflict. This is hardly a deal-breaker—it's just mildly annoying as you often have to connect and disconnect elements of your setup when moving between titles. Also, the NES emulation is currently only supported on NTSC systems.

I can't really review the Mega Everdrive Pro without addressing the fact that it has a pretty potent rival on the market: the trailblazing Terraonion Mega SD, which was technically the first flash cart to offer Sega CD support. If I'm being honest, I'm a big fan of both carts, but Krikzz's offering just edges out the competition due to a few things. Firstly, it's smaller than the Mega SD—in fact, it's the same size as a standard Mega Drive / Genesis cart, whereas Terraonion's is the size of a Virtua Racing cart—and that makes a big difference when I'm playing on my Nomad, as I often find that the Mega SD is a little too easy to accidentally knock, which can cause some games to crash.

Another plus point is that the Mega Everdrive Pro isn't subject to the slightly bonkers ownership issue that the Mega SD is. In order to download firmware updates for the Mega SD, you have to input the serial number of the cart into Terraonion's site, which 'bonds' the cart with your user account. This is presumably done to prevent people from reselling the carts, but it could cause issues in the future should Terraonion stop supporting the cart with updates, leaving the community to take over. The Mega Everdrive Pro also offers save states for Master System games and has a USB port for debugging and homebrew. In the Mega SD's favour, it offers a more visually appealing menu system.

The final point is the price. The Mega Everdrive Pro costs $199, while the Mega SD is around $260. Both are excellent flash carts which offer much of the same functionality and performance, but if you're keen to get value for money, then Krikzz's cart is the clear winner.

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