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NES Classic


Guest El Chalupacabra
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Guest El Chalupacabra

http://www.nintendo.com/nes-classic

 

So what do you think?

 

I think this is pretty cool for about $60. I think they have a pretty good selection of the top NES games, for the most part. I also like that it has several display modes you can choose from to enhance the resolution; CRT filter, 4:3, and pixel perfect. While I think you can get every one of these games via download on a Wii, etc, the Classic NES is supposedly more faithful to the originals. As someone who is trying to downsize and get rid of clutter, I love the compact design, and the classic look is pretty cool. Also, I personally find myself not really playing video games much anymore, but when I do, I actually play retro games because they are usually over in 5 or 10 minutes, which is all I have time for, anymore. Plus, nostalgia.

 

Probably the only complaints I have are these, below. I know wrote quite a bit about them, but they are really minor complaints, and I think this is a pretty cool console:

 

1. Why stop at only NES? It could have had some SNES games like Donkey Kong Country, Super Metroid, Chrono Trigger, and Super Mario World. I am sure there are more, but those are the ones I would have liked seeing. Or how about maybe charge $20 more, and include N64 games, like Zelda Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, Shadows of the Empire, Rogue Squadron, Goldeneye, Mariocart 64, Super Mario 64. I mean these games are

 

2. Only 30 games? Sure, at a $60 price point you can't expect much more, but Sega Genesis Classic has a lot more at about the same price. It claims to have 80 games: 40 real sega games, 40 generic games, and it has a cartridge slot for old cartridges. Even if they only wanted to just release it with 30 games, couldn't they have thrown in a wifi adapter and maybe 2 GB of storage (that would be more than enough for 8, 16, and 64 bit game roms) to connect to and download additional games, and charged maybe $10 more? There are a lot of retro gamers out there who would have liked that, and would have gladly paid to download more games. They could have kept it at 16 bit or less, and I would have been happy.

 

3. Some games they selected over others. How can you include Pacman and not have Ms Pacman (not that I don't have Ms Pacman, it's more the principle of it)? Why Super C over Contra? You have Megaman 2, but where's 1 & 3? Did we really need Temco Bowl and Star Tropics?

 

4. Only 1 controller? Sure an additional controller can be purchased for $10, but I think they could have included the second controller. Not having it seems chintzy.

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Did we really need Temco Bowl and Star Tropics?

 

Heck yeah! Those two games are awesome. Freakin' Bo Jackson man. Only complaint is the lack of Tecmo Super Bowl.

 

 

 

How can you include Pacman and not have Ms Pacman (not that I don't have Ms Pacman, it's more the principle of it)?

 

Now Pac-Man's another story. Like Donkey Kong or Mario Bros., that was really just an aging arcade port that I don't remember anyone playing.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

Sports video games do not age well. I personally have no interest in playing Temco bowl, even for nostalgia. Star Tropics is a game that doesn't know if it wants to be Legend of Zelda, Kid icarus, or Castlevania. But to be fair, it was more like Legend of Zelda than Adventure of Link was!

 

As for Pacman. Yeah, pretty boring and ubiquitous. I never play it. But I will play Ms Pacman once in a while. Just saying I'd rather have seen MS pacman than Pacman.

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Star Tropics is a game that doesn't know if it wants to be Legend of Zelda, Kid icarus, or Castlevania.

 

You'll have to explain Castlevania to me...

 

Anyway, Star Tropics is one of those games that's just massively underappreciated. I think it does know what it wants to be. An adventure game that's a little less heavy on non-linear trial-and-error exploration and more on action and story.

 

The controls are good, the story's fun, the gameplay varied, and the tile mechanics are unique, work, and Nintendo gets the most out of them as you'd expect. I remember being shocked at how much I liked it as a kid (I disliked the commercials and thought it looked dumb). Only thing that annoyed me was the 747 password since I rented the game the first time and didn't have the letter to dip into water. Honestly, if you really put this side-by-side with The Legend of Zelda, this is a lot more polished and modern a gaming experience. While The Legend of Zelda is dated and only acceptable in context to its era and the NES, with a mild graphical tweak, Star Tropics would have been at home as a quality SNES game or a retro game released today.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

I dunno. I didn't play it all that much back in the day, and never was much interested in it. If it works for you, great. I'm not going to dwell on it.

 

In any event, the NES classic seems like a decent console, and $59 isn't a bad price at all, considering it is about the same cost as a single modern game. But it could have been a little better for the reasons I listed above. Compared to the Genesis Classic, it just seems you don't get as much for the money. Especially when MAME is so readily available. If Nintendo just included a wifi card and capability to download even just more 8 bit games, it would have been a lot better.

 

Will I get one? Probably not, unless my modded xbox that has all the games listed on the NES classic finally gives up the ghost.

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I think it's a great little idea and well worth the price. Retro-gaming is getting pretty big. I think there is a good market for the 30-something year old who is nostalgic enough to really want to play...say Zelda again, but doesn't want to deal with the hassle of hunting down a console and a compatible TV, controllers, and a 30 year old Zelda game cartridge where that backup battery lasts less than 10 minutes.

 

The average customer in this target market probably doesn't have the time, space, or even care enough to want to put the effort to buy all this stuff a la carte; so the fact it now comes in a nice and neat little box with no cartridges is perfect. nostalgia is going to drive this product's success, but that Nostalgia fades away quickly and easily, especially since these customers are adults and have lives... so they crafted this console to operate quickly and easily; and it's sold cheap enough that they aren't going to price themselves out of business.

 

Another point. This target market is more frugal and self-aware enough to know it won't play these games for hours on end. Chances are, they will play a game or two and it will go in the closet for months or perhaps even eternity. My point is, if it's too expensive they won't buy it because they know they might not use it much.

 

One problem. It's a strange array of classics that are suspiciously absent from the game list. No Contra?? No Double Dragon?? You serious?! why do you have the sequels to both of these games on the console, but not the original gems themselves? Also, no Bionic Commando? No Battletoads? No dragon warrior 3? But...I see they got pacman huh. Oh. I didn't even know the NES had a pacman game.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

You make some good points and you are probably exactly right: this is for the non-techie casual gamer who wants to spend $60 and their done. Much like those who bought the Jakk's Pacific game joysticks. This is basically Nintento's answer to that. Yeah pacman ending up on NES Classic did make me scratch my head too. But it could have been placed on there for the casual retro gamer you describe.

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One great thing about these old games is that they play quick.

 

1) blow on the cartridge and put it in.

2) press start

3) wait a few seconds

4) game starts. Play!

 

I don't play video games much anymore, but one day I felt the need to play one. I hooked up my xbox360 because it's the only console I own and don't care to get a modern-day console. I put in a game I remembered LOVING that isn't too old...Fallout Vegas. Okay here we go:

 

1) put the disk in

2) do you want to update? No. Just play.

3) title screen. Wait a few seconds.

4) no save file detected. Do you want to create one now? I want to play now...so yeah.

5) there are updates available for the game. Do you want to...NO JUST PLAY

6) some online features won't be available because you aren't using a current NOBODY PLWYS THIS ONLINE ANYMORE JUST PLAY

7) okay. Loading, loading. Loading.

8) Cut scene. Skip...doesn't work. I can't skip yet because it's still kinda loading I guess.

9) Okay now that the cut scene is half over, I can skip it. Loading.

10) Game starts. Play? Nope. Can't move because MOR GODAM TALKING! Can't skip this at all.

11) Create your face. Male Default preset#1 is perfect. More obligatory talking but not listening. Just mashing A button to try to skip.

12) I finally have control. I CAN MOVE! Can't leave yet though. Walk over to the pinball machine thingy and select your statistics. I put points into intelligence which is, ironically enough, StUPID of me because there's NO WAY I'm making it passed level 2. What do I need a few extra skill points for? I should've just put them all into speed and endurance,

13) Now walk over to the couch and talk some more to determine your skills. Why is this entire process so tedious?

14) finally! Oh look a machine gun I don't have the skill to repair yet. Thank GOD it's here at the start when you have no skill in anything.

15) I want to walk out the door but the old man is in the damn way. He's slowly walking to the door. The game does this on purpose so you have to listen to every damn word he has to say,

16) ...at this point I'm bored and would rather be doing anything else. I shut the damn game off in the middle of the tutorial. I never even got to the hand holding starting quests. The game never really started. I just wasted my time.

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One great thing about these old games is that they play quick.

1) blow on the cartridge and put it in.

2) press start

3) wait a few seconds

4) game starts. Play!

 

Think you got some nostalgia goggles on. This is how I remember the experience of turning on my NES.

 

1. Blow on cartridge

2. Hit power

3. Watch screen blink.

4. Nudge the game to the side

5. Repeat steps 2-4 twice.

6. Remove game.

7. Repeat steps 1-5.

8. Feel relief when game works.

9. Play game.

10. Hope it doesn't freeze or turn off and start blinking when you're near the end of your unsavable game.

 

Anyway, rumor has it that the Nintendo NX will be bringing back cartridges thanks to flash memory becoming cheaper to mass produce. By all accounts, it's a good call and could well become the new industry standard again and make long loads a thing of the past.

 

Not that it would help with cut scenes you can't skip.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

Yeah, there is something to be said about cartridges. Optical drives are so slow by comparison. Playing games from the hard drive does help load times, but modern consoles have just become media center PCs that have bells and whistles you don't need just to play a game.

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Star Tropics was pure RPG gold before RPGs knew how to be gold.

 

Also, everyone check out Fozzie's posts in the Shameless Self Promotion thread. He's working on a cool little device that for a little bit more than the classic will also give you pretty much every SNES and Genesis game as well.

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  • 6 months later...

Consumers: Take my money!

 

Nintendo: No thanks. We good.

 

Yep, despite the NES Classic being sold out since it was introduced last year, they're discontinuing the product completely. I get that they're focusing their efforts on the Switch, but Nintendo thrives on nostalgia more than any company not named Disney and the NES Classic is the perfect vehicle for capitalizing on it. The tech needed to run an NES game is ridiculously cheap by modern standards, so it couldn't cost much to produce. Even the reviews for the emulation efforts were positive.

 

I haven't exactly been looking for it, but I've never seen this product available in stores. I don't get it.

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I burned myself out looking for one. I tried so hard getting one for my son for Christmas, so he could play what I played when I was his age. No luck. I still look when I'm in target or Walmart and walk by the electronics area, but I'm so disgusted with the way Nintendo handled this.

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I don't really get the uproar, it always seemed like a bit of a novelty collectors item. You can get third party custom devices with more games, the games are all widely available I believe in other places, and it's not like this thing was a new console. Wouldn't surprise me if they've done it due to a licensing issue with one of the games as rumored, or they're about to release VC on Switch with all the games available.

 

Edit: that said, I did get one so that might be part of the reason I don't get the uproar. But as Driver said, get one of those devices from Fozzie or another third party unit instead. I bet people would be happier with a unit like that over the NES mini. The mini was far from perfect - the length of the controller for example is absolutely ridiculous and you'll probably barely end up using the device because of it. Sitting that close to a TV was all well and good in the 80's, but doing it now with high def TV's just kills the eyes. (I hate how old I sound there)

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