Thirty classic games in a fun little package. A must for old school gaming enthusiasts.
What They Say
From your first Goomba stomp to your thousandth victory in Final Fantasy, the Nintendo Entertainment System may just be the most nostalgic gaming console ever. And now, a new, miniaturized version is here, pre-loaded with 30 of the all-time greatest games, including The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario Bros. 3, and Mega Man 2. Just plug it in…and play.
Ideal for collectors or anyone who enjoys video games, the Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition lets you live out the good old days of gaming like never before. The system comes bundled with an HDMI cable, an AC adapter, one NES Classic Controller, and all 30 games, installed and ready-to-play. The system is also compatible with the Classic Controller and Classic Controller Pro, but additional NES Classic Controllers will be sold separately. Each NES Classic Controller can be plugged into a Wii Remote controller for use with NES Virtual Console games on the Wii U system! Return to your roots…or discover them for the first time. The wonderful world of 8-bit awaits.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
On November 11, Nintendo released their newest “cool-gadget-that-everybody-wants-but-cannot-have-because-Nintendo-likes-to-tease-us-with-limited-quantities”: the NES Classic Edition. The NES Classic Edition (also known colloquially as the NES Mini) looks like a miniaturized NES Control Deck from the 1980s and comes complete with thirty games built in. Like many gamers, I wanted one the moment it was announced; unlike many gamers, I was lucky enough to get my hands on one on the release date. So, after a weekend of playing the thing almost non-stop, how does it actually hold up?
The answer is very well, thank you very much. In the interest of full disclosure, I still have my NES and many games hooked up in my mancave, and I play it fairly regularly. The emulation on the NES Mini is pretty spot on. The games play exactly as they did back in the day (with a few minor exceptions to be detailed below), and the selection of the games is really top notch (with a few other exceptions to also be detailed below).
But let’s start with aesthetics. As noted, the unit looks like a miniaturized version of the classic NES Control Deck, the famous front loading version, not the sturdier top loading version that came later, near the end of the system’s run. Audio and video is ported out through HDMI, and it is powered by the same USB technology that runs all our gadgets, meaning we can either plug it into the wall using the provided adapter, or power it with the USB port on a computer. This kind of flexibility is kind of important because navigating the system is actually fairly limited.
In a nice little add to the system, you can also select three display modes: 4:3, Pixel Perfect, and CRT. 4:3 is a clean image, rendered in the same screen format for which the games were originally designed. Pixel Perfect is similar, but it converts all the pixels to perfect squares (pixels in the old 4:3 format were slightly rectangular—wider than they were tall) to clean the images up a bit more. And CRT maintains the 4:3 format, but artificially adds in the lines that used to be visible when playing on an old CRT TV. To me, 4:3 generally looks the best because it is nice and clean, but I generally play on CRT because my nostalgia gets the best of me (also for a reason I’ll discuss below when talking about Punch-Out!!). I personally don’t like Pixel Perfect, because while it often cleans up jagged lines, the image looks too squished for me.
Now to the important part: the games. The selection available in this unit is just about as good as could be dreamed: Balloon Fight, Bubble Bobble, Castlevania, Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., Double Dragon II: The Revenge, Dr. Mario, Excitebike, Final Fantasy, Galaga, Ghost’s ‘n Goblins, Gradius, Ice Climber, Kid Icarus, Kirby’s Adventure, Mario Bros., Mega Man 2, Metroid, Ninja Gaiden, Pac-Man, Punch-Out!! featuring Mr. Dream, StarTropics, Super C, Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2, Super Mario Bros. 3, Tecmo Bowl, The Legend of Zelda, and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. There is a lot of gaming there. Some games, like Donkey Kong and Excitebike will likely be the sorts of things you put on, play for five minutes, and then move on. But others, such as Final Fantasy and The Legend of Zelda, are games that you can/will play for hours at a time. And there are plenty that fall right in between. There’s a lot of variety here, and that’s great. At the bottom of this review, I’ll do a little fantasy wish making as to some changes I’d have personally made to the games in the unit, but it’s hard to argue with the quality here.
So, how do they play? Really well. The emulation is top notch. These are direct ports of the originals games, so they play exactly as you remember them. Any input codes, glitches, passwords, etc. that you remember from the old days still exist in these ports. Putting in ZELDA as your name in The Legend of Zelda still takes you to the second quest, the JUSTIN BAILEY password in Metroid still starts you with suitless Samus (the name Zero Suit Samus hadn’t been invented yet), and clipping through the pipe at the end of 1-2 in Super Mario Bros. still allows you to access the negative world. It’s all there. The only thing that has slightly changed is that due to licensing issues, the specific players have been removed from Tecmo Bowl and replaced with generic numbers. But otherwise, the game plays exactly the same—34 on Los Angeles still runs through the defense whether he’s named Bo Jackson or not.
The only game that is a little bit of a struggle to play (and it admittedly could be my TV processing slowly as much as the system…I haven’t been able to test it on different setups) is Punch-Out!! Anybody who has tried to hook up any old video game system to a modern TV (or emulated old games through the Virtual Console or whatever) has probably noticed that since the TV has to convert the system’s analog signal to the digital one it can output, there is a very brief input lag between pressing a button on your controller and seeing it happen on the screen. For the vast majority of games, this input lag has no real effect on the game. But on a game like Punch-Out!!, where reflexes are tested to the nano-second, it’s enough to render the game virtually unplayable.
Where the NES Mini processes everything digitally, controller lag is supposed to be a thing of the past. And admittedly, it’s better, but it’s still not quite perfect. The NES Mini’s version of Punch-Out!! is much better than any since the original played on an NES hooked up to an old CRT TV, but it’s still off just enough that the later fights are really difficult. I do think in time, adjusting to this will be possible, but it’s still not quite perfect. Oddly, this lag seems to be affected by what display mode you are playing in. In 4:3, the lag is still quite noticeable, while in CRT and Pixel Perfect, the lag is almost non-existent, hence the other reason I suggested above that I tend to play in CRT mode most often. But again, Punch-Out!! is really the only game that this affects, and people might have a different experience on a different TV.
The only legitimate argument against this system that I personally see (aside from the controller cord length) is that this system is completely self-contained. There is no network connection for this that would allow for a Virtual Console type system that would enable you to put more games on here. What you see is what you get. Personally, I don’t care that much, but it does seem like a wasted opportunity for Nintendo. This is as close to playing on an old NES as you are going to get without going to find an actual NES, and I’d assume there would be a lot of people ready to drop a lot of money to get more games on it. The Wii/WiiU/3DS Virtual Console is already quite the money maker for Nintendo, and I’d think that a Virtual Console on this would be even more appealing. And if that was available, it would eliminate some of the questions that people have had over Nintendo’s choice of games.
This is the point of the review where I discuss what changes I would make to the games list, so if you aren’t interested, just go ahead and skip to the “In Summary” section. I won’t be offended. Also note that I am well aware that some of these decisions were likely made due to licensing and/or cost issues. Just because it would “make sense” for a certain game to be part of this collection doesn’t mean that the game in question was readily available for Nintendo to put in it. So this discussion is more of a “In a perfect world…” situation rather than a “What were they thinking!?” one.
The first thought I had when considering the game list is that I would lose Pac-Man and Galaga. I’m as big a fan of those games as anybody, but honestly, those are better known as classic arcade games from an earlier era then they are known as NES Classics. Just because there were NES versions of them doesn’t make them iconic to the system. I’d actually make the same argument about Donkey Kong, Donkey Kong Jr., and Mario Bros., but at least those are the original entries into long running, iconic Nintendo franchises. Even with that tie, they are still known more as classic arcade/Atari games than NES games, so I’d personally lose them.
So what would I replace them with? Well, I think there are plenty of good options. The first game that I feel really needed to be on here is Dragon Warrior. Sure, it’s a game that really hasn’t aged well, but that case could be made for some other games selected to be here (Excitebike?). And while Final Fantasy is a better known franchise in this country, Dragon Warrior was more important to the introduction of console RPGs to US audiences (the fact that it was a free gift to Nintendo Power subscribers probably helped). And really, if you don’t mind grinding, it’s a pretty decent game.
This system gives us the Super Mario Bros. trilogy and both NES Legend of Zelda games, so what about finishing the classic NES Castlevania trilogy and giving us Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse? The first Castlevania might be more iconic, and the second might be a fun adventure, but Castlevania III is/was certainly the most popular of the trilogy, taking the formula of the first and adding some fun variety to it.
There’s Bionic Commando, an incredibly fun platformer that has a grappling mechanic requiring you to think about platforming in a completely different way. How about the original Metal Gear? Sure, Kojima might not have been happy with the way the original MSX version was translated to the NES, but that doesn’t make the NES version any less fun. Or Pro Wrestling, perhaps one of the greatest professional wrestling games ever created? Tetris? I could go on, but I think any of these would have made great additions and make the system more NES-centric.
The last couple ideas I had were for a few straight swaps of certain games for others in their series. The first switch I’d consider is the most obvious one (and the one that’s already been most discussed): drop Super C in favor of its predecessor, Contra. Contra is much more well-known and much more well-beloved. Even people who have never played it before know Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, Start: the classic cheat code that gives you thirty lives. Contra is far more iconic than any in the series that have followed it, and should have been included.
I’d also drop Double Dragon II in favor of Double Dragon. To be honest, I actually prefer the second to the first, but like Contra/Super C, the original is much more iconic than the second. I know the question of who owns the rights for the arcade version of the original Double Dragon is pretty murky; perhaps the home version is tied up in the same confusion. And perhaps the lack of a legit two player mode in the original makes Double Dragon II a little more ideal for the NES Mini, but I’d probably still have had the first instead.
As an almost aside: how about Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! for Punch-Out!!? I know it would never happen, and I know the games are identical, but beating Mr. Dream just doesn’t have the same cache as beating Iron Mike.
As my last straight swap, I’d drop Tecmo Bowl for Tecmo Super Bowl. Unlike the first couple arguments, I recognize that Tecmo Bowl is more iconic than its sequel, but Tecmo Super Bowl takes everything that was great about the first game and adds in a bunch of elements that enhance the game without affecting the actual playability of it at all. With a full season mode, stat tracking, and eight selectable plays rather than just four, the game is far more versatile, and is actually more fun because of it. I understand that Tecmo Bowl is remembered more readily than Tecmo Super Bowl, and that is likely a large part of the reason the first was chosen, but this is an instance I’d have gone against that.
So yeah, that went a lot longer than I planned. Still, even with these thoughts, I’d like to stress that this is still a pretty stellar game line up. Pretty much each genre is represented, and there’s a good mix of short, medium, and long games, meaning that whatever you might be in the mood for, there’s probably a good choice for you here. I might “wish” for some changes, but I can’t really complain.
In Summary:
The NES Classic Edition is a wonderful little device. Thirty games for $60 is a deal you can’t really beat. Sure, you probably won’t spend a whole lot of time with some games like Excitebike, but you’ll make up for it with others like Final Fantasy and StarTropics. There is just a ton of value here. The inability to add games to it down the road seems like an odd business decision, and the short controller length hurts the appeal for some people, but again, it’s $60 for thirty games in a really cool little package. With the short supply that is typical for many Nintendo gadgets, I don’t know how feasible getting one before Christmas might be. But if you can get your hands on one, it seems like the perfect gift for any gamers you might know (or be). And the moment you can, I certainly recommend it.
Content Grade: A-
Released By: Nintendo
Release Date: November 11, 2016
MSRP: $59.99
