What got you into famicom?

[MaxXimus]

I enjoy retro gaming much more than next gen gaming, and I also like having obscure things in my possession.  Combine those two things and you have a recipe for import gaming.

My first import purchase was actually a CIB Super Famicom with a few CIB and a few loose games. It cost me about $120 which in my opinion was an awesome price.

[fcgamer]

I grew up playing the NES, and when Funcoland had moved into my area, I quickly began buying up all of the games that I wanted as a child, yet couldn't afford.  This was around the time when the internet first started to become popular, and I then quickly discovered NES World and |tsr's NES Archives, the two best NES fansites of the day. 

Both of these websites would showcase all sorts of rare and weird obscurities, including some amazing Famicom games.  Growing up I was always envious of the games that the Japanese received that the US didn't, and this was just grounded deeper into my brain when visiting those websites.  So I did what anyone would do.  No ebay account, and years before paypal became big, I begged one of my friends to ask his older brother to bid on a set of Famicom games for me (TMNT and TMNT2), and these were the first two Famicom games I ever owned. 

Over the course of the next few years I would grab some other obscure Famicom games, including some Sachen stuff, a small cache of games from Russia, etc.  The most amazing story has to be the time I sent an international money order out to Thailand (or it might have been cash in an envelope, I can't remember) to buy a copy of Family Kid, a hack of Somari.  It took about six months, but eventually I did get my game, even though looking back on it, it was certainly a risky move on my part.  The internet is a different beast now than before.

During this whole time I was collecting NES mostly, and just grabbing some Famicom stuff as I saw fit, as I felt that the two machines were one and the same.  I eventually got fed up with NES collecting for many reasons, and just sold most of my stuff.  Collecting became more about scamming and money, and I just didn't like it.  About 4 years later I would end up living in Taiwan, and my interest for the old games slowly crept back into my soul.  I bought a Famicom clone, and then I would be on the nightmarish path of Famicom collecting. 

When comparing NES and Famicom, I just see so many negatives with NES collecting.  From the game machine, to the prices, to the volume of games available, to the censorship.  I feel like I could never go back to the NES again, and much prefer the Famicom in every way possible.

[maxellnormalbias]

For me:

It all started when I was at some store back in 2008 or so and saw a NES M82 demo unit. My dad told me about Donkey Kong, so when I saw it was in it I played it. I was confused why there was no donkeys, but nevertheless enjoyed the game. I couldn't get past level 1.

Anyways, in 2009 Nintendo Week started. And I watched that show every week. Religiously. Anyways, New Super Mario Bros. Wii came out and Gary and Allison mentioned "the original NES super mario" or something. I quickly googled and after beating NSMBW played a whole bunch of Mario flash games. You know the kind, the ones on those sites you go to when click on those suspicious banner ads with no words and stolen pictures on them? Anyways, eventually my parents connected the Wii to the internet. And I got the original SMB off of the Wii Shop channel. I also got Pacman and Urban Champion (I started watching Pat the NES Punk, and I remembered him talking about Urban Champion and not liking it, but I thought it looked fun.)

Little did I know I was getting ripped off. $5 (500 Wii Points) for THIS? I took it to myself to find an alternative to this thievery. And I think most of my interest in gaming started because of one man. Richard Bannister was like my hero. He had (and I think still has) a website with so many emulators for Mac (my family always uses macs for some reason) and of course my favourite was NEStopia. I went to Doperoms.com, searched something, and usually ended up with some BS rom hack where the main character obtains marijuana instead of whatever they're supposed to obtain. Sometimes it was cartoon poop or swastikas. I thought for a whole year that Link collected swastikas and had a hitler moustache.

Anyways, around late 2012 I got a NES and SMB/Duck Hunt. Mid 2013 and my friend got a Hyperkin Retron1. Anyways, my friend's friend's parents had like 30 NES games and that was when I finally saw authentic games. We stayed up all night at my friend's house playing Mario 3 one night. We got to world 4 I think. Anyways, my friend had all the games and I managed to get my hands on a Game Genie. So we usually came over to each other's houses to try codes on some random game.

I had 5 NES games: SMB, Duck Hunt, Bionic Commando (never really bothered to play), Pro Wrestling, and Kung Fu. I also had a 31-in-1 multicart that's very common and you probably know about.

Anyways, my NES started smoking back in early 2014 when my family moved house and idiot me decided to plug it in with a power adapter for a Blu-ray player or something. I lived NESless and mainly played the Wii U until I got a Famicom a few weeks back. I currently have an NTDEC 82-in-1 multicart and recently discovered Ali Express, and I'm asking for 198-in-1 as well as a 6-in-1 Mario multicart for Christmas. No, I don't believe in Santa Claus.

And that's the end of my Famicom story. Yours will probably be set sometime in the mid-to-late 80s, but I wasn't alive then, so yeah.

Interesting footnote: When we saw the turbo buttons on the retron we called Microsoft and complained that the Xbox 360 didn't have turbo buttons. My friend was right, it would have been way better for shooting pistols in FPSes.

[Shumi Nagaremono]

Great story!  Thanks for sharing! 

Mine's not terribly exciting. 

I kinda got roped into moving to Japan about a decade back.  I was broke and increasingly agoraphobic.  Back then, it wasn't as easy for gaikokujin to get around easily.  My girlfriend at the time had a Super Famicom and a couple of games, and since I was just sorta stuck at home all day, I started messing around with it. 

Once I got a bit more comfortable in the country, my GF dumped me.  I moved out of town and was more broke than ever.  But there were a few used game places and most Famicom titles were *incredibly* cheap.  100 yen games for *days*.  People talk about "Nintendo hard".  Try NES games when you're not great with the language.  But that turned out to be for the best, since each game took longer, I saved money *and* got to practice with the language in my spare time. 

After a few months of getting steady paychecks, money wasn't so tight, but I was still hooked on Famicom stuff.

I kept my hobby small, just a Famiclone and a small library of cheap games, but I started expanding my collection a few years ago.  I got married and moved to a small area in Fukuoka that had three different used game places along the route that I would cycle around.  Two of those places got some pretty uncommon stuff on a pretty regular basis.

Then, my wife and I moved to Tokyo, so I had to cut back on FC stuff.  Not because it's hard to find, but because it's so *easy*.  Shopping for used games in Tokyo is like shopping for used games online.  Everything's there if you're willing to pay for it.  Still, I've been enjoying adding some choice pieces to my collection that I'd never found "in the wild" before.   

[fcgamer]

Hey maxell, awesome topic, and also awesome to see some younger gamers interested in the Famicom / NES.  PM me your address, and I'll send you a few random multicarts / games for your Famicom, some classics you should try out, as a gift

My story starts back when I was three years old.  My brother and I were visiting my aunt and uncle's house, with my parents of course.  We were bored to tears, and our step cousins had asked us if we wanted to come upstairs to play Nintendo.  My brother, the older one of me and him, is not a risk taker.  He knew some of the kids at school had "Nintendo", but didn't know what it was and thought it was scary-sounding.  I decided to go up though, and after seeing how awesome it was, convinced my brother to check out the NES as well.  We loved it, all of our boredom disappeared, and that Christmas we would get a NES.

Around 1998 or so was when my family got connected to the internet, and besides checking out websites on Star Wars and nudie pics (presumably unbeknownst to my parents), I was also checking out NES websites.  I saw some really cool stuff from Asia, discovered Famicom more in-depth, and drooled over all of the cool stuff I got to see.  Finally at some game shops at my mall I found some unlicensed games, and then another used game shop (Funcoland) would move into my area the next year.  I initially got all of the games I had wanted as a child but could never find/afford to buy, and then afterwards started purchasing as many games as I could get.  Funcoland's supply eventually dried up, I moved off to college, and girls took a larger focus than these retro games.  So I sold off all of my collection, aside from the games I had as a kid and the games I genuinely enjoyed playing, and moved on.  Occasionally I would play some games with my brother, but it was off and on, kind of spotty, not really having a lot of free time.  When my brother bought his wii, I did get hooked on the two Mario Galaxy games though.

A few years back I moved to Taiwan.  Like Shumi Nagaremono, I felt a bit trapped initially, feeling unsure of myself to navigate the country with such little knowledge of Chinese.  After a two-month stint in a different city, I was (wrongfully) fired from my job, and ended up moving to where I am now.  The whole situation bothers me, even to this day, and I think that was sort of the catalyst that led me into the Famicom craze that I am going through now.

At my new place, I was isolated, in the country.  I barely knew anyone, and aside from a couple hours on Sunday, playing guitar in a short-lived band I was in, I had nothing to do.  I felt bored, tired, frustrated, and lonely.  Sometimes I would go on dates with girls, but it seemed I could just never meet someone suited for me.  Then one day, I was in a shop and I saw some portable Famicom clone for sale, basically an emulator with some Famicom games.  I bought it, but was not satisfied with it, as the games were hacked and the characters were invincible.  So I talked to a colleague about it one day, and she helped me order a Famiclone, which came with a multicart.  I finally had something to do during my free time.

Naturally though, I would soon outgrow the multicart, and I also started feeling more comfortable getting around.  I would then find a few local shops near me, and bought them out (literally) of their (small) old stock of Famicom games.  This did it, and I then started researching more, until I finally started collecting games full time again.  But of course, these games were all either bootlegs or unlicensed originals.

A guy on Famicom World (Sean) had been selling hundreds of legit Famicom games for reasonable prices.  He had mentioned at one point about trying to get a full set of Famicom games, and I really liked the idea, so I decided that I would try to do the same.  I then started purchasing a lot of games from him, and at that point, I felt that my Famicom adventure really came into fruitation.  That is where I am at now.

[BaconBitsKing]

It interested me at first, but watching Chrontendo (a cool show that reviews every FC and NES game) got me even more interested. I started watching GameCenter CX a while later, which kind of gave me the urge to play some of these games. Within a few months, I had known tons of things about the Famicom just by reading a whole bunch about it. Then I found myself on this forum and finally decided to get a Famicom. I bought 4 games for it.

That's the short version, anyway.

[M-Tee]

NES? As a kid, an uncle had one. It was rad, and my parents got me one that year for Christmas. The SMB/Duck Hunt cart, Megaman 2, and Bubble Bobble. A solid starting set.

I, as well as many others, I'm sure, tried unsuccessfully to track down Megaman 1 afterward, to no avail.

Shortly after,  I got Donkey Kong Classics and a Game Genie followed by TMNT 2, but mostly rented titles. I remember renting Excitebike religiously, and taking Micro Machines back twice in the rain because the cart didn't work. I think the last NES game my parents bought me was Monsters in my Pocket, for Easter, as I remember the shock because Easter was a candy-level holiday in my mind, not a gift one.

Later, in high school, I got into emulation through Zophar's Domain, trading ROMs on reappropriated AOL trial floppies with friends. Got into ROM hacking a bit with Nesticle and put out some shoddy graphics-only mods under a former pseudonym.

A few years into college, a roommate and I had amassed an irresponsibly-sized, but very cheaply-acquired retro game collection, which we sold off in preparation for a very brief period of time spent homeless due to a natural disaster. Wasn't into games at all for a long time afterward.

Eh, my train ride's over. Part 2 of 2 later, I guess.

[FamilyMan]

As a child I used to play nes. I remember playing excitebike, elevator action, tmnt II, duck hunt, and of course, super mario I and II, I got back into nes as a teenager when it was in my piano class. Waiting for others to finish their lessons made me interested in it all over again by titles like batman, rc pro am, zelda, color a dinosaur, mission impossible, silent service. However 5 years ago I stopped again and had not turned on a console for a year. That would all change after I spent 6 months in Thailand. As most people stated at first you feel isolated when moving to a country with a language barrier. While I did overcome this, I bought an AV famicom and went to many gameshops and nightmarkets. That was 4 years ago and I still love playing Famicom as much as time allows me.

[fcgamer]

As a child I used to play nes. I remember playing excitebike, elevator action, tmnt II, duck hunt, and of course, super mario I and II, I got back into nes as a teenager when it was in my piano class. Waiting for others to finish their lessons made me interested in it all over again by titles like batman, rc pro am, zelda, color a dinosaur, mission impossible, silent service. However 5 years ago I stopped again and had not turned on a console for a year. That would all change after I spent 6 months in Thailand. As most people stated at first you feel isolated when moving to a country with a language barrier. While I did overcome this, I bought an AV famicom and went to many gameshops and nightmarkets. That was 4 years ago and I still love playing Famicom as much as time allows me.

Hehe, so we all moved to a country with a language barrier, and then turned to Famicom, a part of our past, to overcome the unfamiliarity, and now we are hooked.  Hehehe. 

[maxellnormalbias]

It's weird how things turn out that way. I'm pretty sure everyone that ever played Minecraft discovered it because a friend showed it to them.

Anyways, I forgot to mention a phase around mid-2014 when I got really interested in early PC gaming. Stuff like Doom and Commander Keen.

[Shumi Nagaremono]

As a child I used to play nes. I remember playing excitebike, elevator action, tmnt II, duck hunt, and of course, super mario I and II, I got back into nes as a teenager when it was in my piano class. Waiting for others to finish their lessons made me interested in it all over again by titles like batman, rc pro am, zelda, color a dinosaur, mission impossible, silent service. However 5 years ago I stopped again and had not turned on a console for a year. That would all change after I spent 6 months in Thailand. As most people stated at first you feel isolated when moving to a country with a language barrier. While I did overcome this, I bought an AV famicom and went to many gameshops and nightmarkets. That was 4 years ago and I still love playing Famicom as much as time allows me.

Hehe, so we all moved to a country with a language barrier, and then turned to Famicom, a part of our past, to overcome the unfamiliarity, and now we are hooked.  Hehehe. 

[HyperDuel]

After keep buying/selling video games collections I realize one thing:  Never had a true 8-bit experience.  The NES bored me to tears with the toaster and the big oversize gray carts.  I look at the Famicom and I'm like "interesting I'll do this instead."   Only console I have is an AV Famicom and a Disk System which is mostly used for Zanac.

[JohnnyBlaze]

I loved the NES growing up and as an adult, I learned about the Famicom and how advanced the Fami versions were compared to the NES versions. What finally sold me is the episodes of Famicom Dojo. I've had to sell a couple TwinFamis over the years and I'll get one down the road again just to have, but for now, I am in the middle of acquiring an AV Famicom and got an EverDrive on the way, so I can play it as much as I want without having to worry about my controllers wearing out.

[mrtselevel]

Damn if I knew about this thread I wouldnt have wrote the same information in my introduction.

My High School friend had one and I thought it was just interesting because it was so different looking.  During my first trip to Japan my friend whom I was staying with had a famiclone and I really just dug the the carts and how they were different shapes and sizes.

I grew up and collected lots of NES stuff, but I guess there is something so visually pleasing to me about all things famicom

[pal52]

In the late 90s a local video store was going out of business and I bought a bunch of NES games. I found a weird U.S. Championship V'Ball cart. turns out it was a famicom cart with a honey bee adapter. not a bad purchase for $4.