sudomod

Hows your battery life? Everything I see posted around the internet says 3-4 hours but I get less than one hour on fresh batteries.
I have used Amazon, Rayovac, and Duracell all with same results. I will buy rechargeable AAs if it can get that 3-4 hours but I dont want to waste the money if it wont. I may do a lipo battery mod... I do have all the parts laying around.
Also, the cartridge gets really hot. I know Pis get hot but im not so sure my other Pis get this hot. Could this cause excessive battery drain?

Yes and mine runs 3-4 hours too.
I'm using IKEA Ladda 2450mAh rechargeable batteries and the PI is running Recalbox 6.1 Beta 3

Sounds like a bad pi, I used regular batteries and got around 3ish hours and then did Lipo mod for a little more time plus being rechargeable.