📰 New article from Retro Handhelds
iiSU Alpha v5 Tries To Move Past Drama With A Better Dual‑Screen Frontend
https://retrohandhelds.gg/iisu-alpha-v5-tries-to-move-past-drama-with-a-better-dual-screen-frontend/
Picture this: a dual‑screen handheld finally gets a launcher that looks like the slick mockups it was promised years ago. That’s the promise of iiSU Alpha v5, the newest build from the beleaguered iiSU team.
After founder UsagiShade quit amid a Discord drama (and even refunded about $5K in donations), the devs have stripped out the grand‑vision social fluff—Shopii, news feeds, Miiverse‑style hangouts—and gone back to basics. Alpha v5 focuses on polishing the Android frontend for clamshell devices like the AYN Thor and AYANEO Pocket DS. Expect a revamped UI, smoother navigation, animated transitions, and better controller handling, plus scrapers (SteamGridDB, ScreenScraper) that finally make your game library look decent.
The team is also shouting from the rooftops that Usagi is no longer involved, hoping to distance the project from past missteps. While the app remains a work‑in‑progress and can still be fragile, this release feels like the first solid step toward turning iiSU into a daily driver rather than a cautionary tale.
Bottom line: if you’ve been waiting for a usable dual‑screen launcher, Alpha v5 might just be worth a try—provided you’re okay with a few rough edges.