I wanted an NES Classic as soon as it was announced back in the Summer of 2016. Unfortunately, I struggled like so many other gamers just to find one on a store shelf when it finally launched in November. When it was officially discontinued earlier this month, I decided I wasn’t going to give up without a fight. I would check inventory websites every day until the end of the month, just in case by some miracle a local store received a shipment. I didn’t have to search for long. The very morning after the sad news, I learned that a nearby Target had three in stock. When I arrived I was number three in line, and with that an NES Classic was finally mine.
I consider myself extremely lucky to have one of these, especially when so many other gamers I know never will. As such, I think it is only right that I fully document the system, and give it a fair assessment. Please do not mistake this for bragging in any way shape or form. I simply hope to treat it with a level of respect that it hasn’t received from all the scalpers and wallflower fans.
Box/Packaging
Because it was so hard to find, I never saw any photos of the NES Classic on a store shelf. This meant it was hard for me to imagine the proper scale of the box, so my mind simply decided that it must be the same size as the box for a modern console.
Silly, I know, especially considering that the actual box is quite small. Here it is standing next to a DVD case.
Visually, the box mimics the mid-to-late era design of NES hardware packaging. It uses the same blue-black gradient, the starscape, the gold lettering and the red stripe along the top. If you grew up with the NES, this is likely the kind of packaging you remember, so it was smart for Nintendo to reuse it.
The back of the box contains screenshots of many of the included games, which used to be common on game console boxes as late as the Playstation 2. It’s another nice, deliberate throwback.
There are a few other welcome touches. The console’s old slogan, Now you are playing with power, is printed along the inside of the side flap used to open the box. Additionally, the console’s instruction manual doubles as a poster which shows off some very old promotional artwork for the original NES Deluxe Set, featuring the old grey Zapper and ROB the Robot. I had no idea this was included, but I’m in love with it (more on why later).
Contents
In addition to the NES Classic itself, you get one replica NES controller, a micro-USB power supply (AKA a cell phone charter), and an HDMI cable. It truly is a plug and play setup, though this is the first time I’ve seen a plug and play game system that uses HDMI instead of composite cables (which shows you how long it’s been since I’ve used anything like this).
Hardware Design
The unit itself is wonderfully well done. Nintendo did a fine job capturing all of the details found on the original NES, and the plastic feels good and sturdy. The console may feel light, but it doesn’t feel cheap. Also of note is the fact that the cartridge slot does not open, though to be fair there’s no reason for it to do so; the console is far too small to accept NES Game Paks.
The controller is also a thing of beauty. It is an exact replica of the original NES pad, right down to the size and the color scheme. Even the weight is similar. The only major change is that the old connector is replaced with the modern one used by Wii and Wii U accessories. This means that the NES pad can be used on the Wii U Virtual Console, and it also means you can use a number of Wii and Wii U controllers with the NES Classic. This is a very good thing when you consider that extra NES Classic controllers were even harder to find than the console itself.
This is all well and good, but there is a major quirk to the design of the NES Classic that needs to be addressed. All of the cables and cords that come in the box are incredibly short. That includes both the controller cable (which is under three feet long) and the HDMI cable. If you want to enjoy the NES classic out of the box, using nothing but the provided equipment, you’re going to find it hard to do so. Both the console and you yourself will have to sit right next to your television. The only setup that would be plausible in this situation would be to use a smaller HDTV standing on a table (which is then placed close to a wall outlet).
For most of us, however, this isn’t going to work, in which case your two best options are:
a) Use a longer HDMI cable and an electrical extension cord to bring the console to your couch or chair.
b) Leave the Classic by the TV and use some sort of third party peripheral (such as a wireless controller, a controller with a longer cord, or a controller cord extender) to be able to play from a reasonable distance away.
Depending on which approach you take, you could be looking at up to twenty bucks - or even more, depending on if you go for a wireless controller - in additional equipment in order to integrate the NES Classic into your home. If we were talking about an Xbox or PS4, that amount of money is a drop in the bucket. But the Classic retails (retailed?) for only sixty bucks. At that price, such additional expenditures feel much more significant and annoying.
There is another quirk of the NES Classic design that must be considered - the only way to start playing a new game is to do so the old fashioned way, by hitting the reset button on the console. Unless you have it sitting right next to you, that means getting up to change games.
While this is a potential annoyance, I think I understand why it exists. For better or worse, Nintendo clearly wanted the physical hardware to mimic the originals as much as possible (case in point - on the Famicom Mini, Japan’s equivalent to the NES Classic, the controllers are hard wired into the console, just as they were in the 80’s). That means something as simple as slapping a “home” button onto the controller was out of the question.
Perhaps the same excuse also explains the use of such short cords. It seems like an almost universal truth that children who grew up with the NES played it with their face glued to the screen, and perhaps Nintendo was trying to replicate that experience. In both cases, I think there is something noble in this quest for purity, but the realist in me understands that times have changed, and living room setups are no longer the same as they were in 1985. At the end of the day, Nintendo would have been better off designing this product to work in the 21st century.
Software
This is especially true when you consider that the same level of purity is not present on the software side. Nintendo didn’t just dump the games onto a chip and be done with it. In a move that is very uncharacteristic for the company, the NES Classic doesn’t try to hide the fact that it is, in fact, running an emulator. You can up to four save states for each game on the system, and can lock each one down to prevent them from being overwritten. The Classic also offers three different display modes, including a slightly stretched 4:3 mode, a Pixel Perfect mode (where each pixel is a perfect square), and a “CRT” mode that slaps a bunch of scanlines and a blur filter over the game to make it look it is running on an old 80’s TV set. These kinds of features are nothing new to anyone familiar with emulators, but it is rare to see an them in an official product, especially one from Nintendo, who previously only mildly experimented with these kinds of features in the Virtual Console.
Stylistically, the software is in fact fairly retro. The interface has a pixelated, 8-bit motif, and a catchy chiptune plays in the background. It’s the kind of UI that looks “old”, but clearly took a lot of work to design. Most importantly, it gets the job done.
Game Selection
This is arguably the most important factor in whether or not the NES Classic is even worth all the hype. It comes with thirty games, with no option to expand its library (at least not legally; the console has been hacked in a way that allows more stuff to be loaded on). Simply put, those thirty games are all that most customers are ever going to see, so they need to be pretty darn good.
All things considered, I doubt you will find anyone who considers the list to be thirty most definitive games on the console. There are a few milestone 3rd party games that aren’t to be found, such as Castlevania 3, Contra and Mega Man 3, as well as cult classics such as River City Ransom. Meanwhile there are a few 1st party releases that feel like filler, such as Donkey Kong Junior and Ice Climber.
That being said, there are quite a few essential titles on here. You get all the Mario Bros. games, both Zeldas, the first two Castlevanias, Metroid, Mega Man 2, Final Fantasy, and Punch Out. You also get some cult classics like Bubble Bobble and Startropics. It isn’t a bad collection by any stretch of the imagination, but I’d say it’s in a state where it is so close to perfect that the few major omissions sting that much more.
Conclusion
The NES Classic is not perfect. The A/V setup is more of a hassle than it needs to be, and the game list is going to leave every fan wanting to some degree. And while the extra features are a welcome inclusion, it would have been even better to see more archival content for each game, to add additional historical context.
And yet, when you compare the Classic with any other plug n’ play system, when you factor in the price, and when you consider that it is looking increasingly like Nintendo only planned to manufacture a limited number of units, it is astounding just how much love and care was poured into this thing. There is an attention to detail and presentation here that few publishers, Nintendo included, consider giving to their retro catalog. The more I sit here writing about and pondering the NES Classic, the more I realize how wrong we all were about it. This wasn’t meant to be a mass market product for people to pick up off the end cap at a grocery store. This was meant for diehard adult gamers of a certain age, the people who cut their gaming teeth on the NES and who can still remember every last secret and quirk in all their favorite games. It is for the gamer who actually understands what the Pixel Perfect display mode means, and who would react to the short cabling by hooking it up and rubbing their nose against their TV without a second thought. In other words, it was meant for people like me.
In a way, this is unfortunate, as the system’s massive popularity and low print run means that there are a lot of guys and gals who are like me who will simply never get to play the damn thing. There will also be boring collector types and nostalgia whores who will treat the Classic as nothing more than a collectible trinket, and will never experience or appreciate the goodness inside. But while this may be a tragic fate for the device, it can’t take away from the fact that all things considered, it is an incredibly well made ode to one of the most important and beloved eras in the history of gaming.
Additional Notes
- I wanted to make sure I touch upon that poster a little. I could probably write a whole new blog post about this, but the reason I love the poster is that it is the perfect example of a very specific era of toy advertising. Back in the 80’s games and toys were often advertised using cold, dark colors - and in the case of TV ads, cold and deep voiced narration as well. These ads felt scary and even a little bit threatening, and for whatever reason this made them all the more enticing. It is a style that is very much of the 1980’s, and a part of me will always have an affinity for it.
- I actually went ahead and weighed both the NES Classic’s controller and an original NES controller. The Classic’s controller is actually a bit heavier, at 4.4 ounces, while the original pad clocked in at 4.2 oz. That’s pretty close, though I can’t tell if this was intentional or not.
- If you leave the system on the main menu, a Demo Mode starts up after about a minute of inactivity. Mario and Luigi begin to jump around the screen, and eventually they’ll start to mess with the display settings or activate the Attract Mode in each of the games. It is incredibly cute in addition to being a powerful nostalgia delivery vehicle. I actually had it running constantly while writing the back half of this post.
- While they aren’t available in the software itself, Nintendo’s website has complete, hi-res scans of all the original instruction manuals for each game on the Classic. It’s amazing that they managed to get such perfect versions of all these materials, especially from all the third parties as well. If you’re into this kind of stuff, I’d suggest downloading the PDF’s before they go away.
- You can also snag similar PDF’s for the games on Famicom Mini.
- If you use a Wii Classic Controller, the Home button will bring you back to the main menu of the NES Classic. So the feature is there, it just can’t be performed with the stock controller.
I’ve got a bunch more pictures on this Google Album for those interested.