Famicom World

Sure, we're all probably fans of the NES, SNES, Genesis, etc. but what got you into the foreign Famicom?

This webpage (somehow) did it for me:

http://www.goodtimeretrocafe.com/nes/takeshi.html

The craziness of this game was just too much. I had to have it on real hardware.

(Also, I bet there's tons of other threads just like this, although I could not find them. Perhaps a mod can merge this post in somehow to a previous topic)

Back in the late 90s when I was starting to get into the amazing world of the Internet and console emulation (remember downloading ROMs like if they were legal files and carrying them on floppy disks?) I stumbled into a site called |tsr's NES archive (http://www.atarihq.com/tsr/index.html). It showed me the wonderful red-white console from Japan and its disk add-on. It was the most awesome thing I've ever seen! I was totally drooling over it, looking everywhere for more information but back then getting one was seriously out of my reach. :'(

A few years later (early 2000s) my dad got me a Famiclone for my birthday. I quickly noticed the similarity of the included cartridge with the original Famicom games. Could this be... a Famicom game? Turned out it was! I was so excited to have a piece of the Japanese hardware even if it was a pirate, it made me realize that it wasn't that far from my reach as I previously thought.

I'm kind of an outcast because of my particular abilites and interests, but soon I was able to get my hands on a Famicom to NES converter and a SMB2j cartridge thanks to friends and flea markets. My collection didn't really take off until I was old enough to earn my own money, from that point on it just skyrocketed, but before that, emulation and my trusty Famiclone provided my needed Famicom fix. :)

Then I stumbled upon Famicom World, realized that OMG this is the place for me, and the rest is history. ;D

Curiosity got me into it.....And we all know, curiosity killed the cat :P

When I first discovered NES World back in around 2000 and found out about all the pirates that are out there. Very interesting stuff, and it's kept me interested ever since :D

Growing up reading Nintendo Power, they'd always preview games that either were canceled for the U.S. release or were "Only in Japan" titles, and I always dreamed of playing these coveted Japan only titles. Luckily I grew up and could afford to buy a system and the games I always dreamed of someday playing as a kid!

I've been sitting here for 5 minutes trying to figure out where I went from nes to famicom. I mean I've loved nes since like the second grade.

Probably just hearing little things on different message boards. You know, like how the sound in castlevania is different, and that they changed this in that game, and stuff.

The games with sound chips and the Famicom Disk System.

Devil World, the PAL version was too expensive so I got the Famicom one. Haven't looked back since.

I bought Akumajo Densetsu, then learned that there wasn't a way to play the expansion sound without soldering. So I hunted down a AV Famicom and it sorta went downhill from there.

When I finally did learn how to solder, all the neat little tricks and fixes to make the old toaster and AV Famicom better were all just icing on the cake.

What got me into Famicom? The trail for me leads back to my friend's NES collection, and then the Yobo FC Game Console.

Somewhere around 2002, a friend of mine had a yard sale and sold off his Nintendo and a bunch of his games. A few weeks later, he came across another small stash of NES games that he was meaning to sell at the yard sale, but had misplaced and wasn't able to sell them at the same time. When he told me about them, I offered to buy them myself even though I had no system to play them on. Those games included Cybernoid, Kung Fu, SMB/DH, Wall Street Kid and Megaman III. I offered $10 for the lot and was then the proud owner of NES paperweights. I bought them mainly because of Megaman III, which I at the time thought would be just a color version of the Gameboy Megaman III [which is totally wrong]

In 2005, I walked into my local mom and pop used game store (the best kind) and noticed they had a new console named the FC Game Console. I asked them about it, and the man explained that its a new system that will play Nintendo games without the blinking power light or need to blow into games to get them to work as long as the games themselves were clean. Although the same shop did sell REAL Nintendos they were $60 and would have all the problems old NES units usually do.

After experiencing Megaman 3 on the Yobo, I started to buy more NES games and then caved and bought an NES from that mom and pop store. LIttle did I realize when I bought my Yobo there that the $60 price referred to a CIB NES. Since I was prepared to spend $60 anyway, I got cerca 1988 NES Action set complete with everything except for the original paperwork.

After that, I discovered Famicom World and that's what got me into Famicom gaming. Now I own several NES toasters, my old Yobo, a portible Famiclone for the GBA SP called the Handy FamiEight, a Famicom, a Famiclone named simply VIDEOGAME, an AV Famicom and a Black Twin Famicom. I think its safe to say that I'm into the Famicom.

I've lived in Japan on and off since 1999, but it was only in 2008 that I got into the Famicom. 

I was at a used book store in Kitakyushu and they had a complete, boxed Famicom for only 1250 yen.  My wife had one when she was a kid (and I had the NES) and she told me what it was.  The box looked really cool, with a photo of the console and a bunch of colorful carts and the retro lettering on the top.  So I bought it. 

We picked up a copy of Clu Clu Land at a game shop on the way home and then I spent about 4 hours trying to make the old thing work.  The reception was crap but eventually I got it working and I got hooked. 

There are a ton of second hand stores that have Famicom game sections near my place and I pretty much constantly drop by a couple of them to see if they've got anything new or anything they are selling for next to nothing (for reasons completely unknown to me a lot of these shops will just dump a bunch of their stock in bargain bins from time to time for insanely cheap prices).

I somehow ended up with a pirate twinbee in 72 pin form a few years ago and I found out it was a famicom exclusive and decided I needed to get an original and an adapter because I liked it so much.  When I got the original and adapter, it came with binary land and this game was also great and a famicom exclusive, so I was hooked I guess

I got started into collecting Famicom because I was interested in neat games that were never released here in the US. I haven't lived in the US my whole life, but we did almost all our shopping on base... meaning my exposure was to US titles growing up.  Then the quirky-fun aspect of just collecting something that is unusual to most game collectors kicked in. Been fun times since.

Living in japan. It's simple as that.  :D

It was 2004, I discovered Famicom by researching on the internet for NES which led me to a Japanese version called the Family Computer... my interest grew.

Then in 2005, I got on eBay and bought 2 games, Argus and Fudou Myououden; and a original Famicom which I couldn't figure out how to use as I wasn't aware of needing to run it on channel 95.

I kept trying to get it to work, and was sad; so I got a Gametech Neo-Fami which in the end introduced me to the first Famicom game play.

Then around a year later the Gametech Neo-Fami broke down, so I boxed my 2 games and the original Famicom up and placed them in my closet. And tossed the Neo-Fami in the trash.

Then around January 2008, I stumbled on this site... then lurked awhile and learned of channel 95; once my Famicom worked I got excited again and in March I joined the site and learned new things and became more interested in Famicom again.

----------------------------------------
Continued:

I later bought a Hudson Expansion port controller, and restarted buying games again.

Then later 2009, I accidentally plugged one of my NES power adapters into my Famicom and blew it; I took it apart and saved certain parts and bought a second Famicom for use.

Then later in 2010, I decided to upgrade and ended up buying an AV Famicom, at that moment I retired my second original Famicom then eventually gave it to a friend.

2015: I upgraded again to a heavily modified original Famicom with AV ports, power LED and front based Controller holes. But I will be keeping my AV Famicom as the look cool next to each other. ;)

Well I always was really into Japanese stuff all throughout childhood (damn you Dragonball!!!, I used to wake up early with my brother and watch it on Saturday morning cartoons, while drinking warm chocolate milk)
But I'd say the point it got good was in my Japanese language class in high school.
I was supposed to give a 10-15 minute long presentation of the history of nintendo,
wound up to be about 45 minutes of me precisely unfolding the tale of NINTENDO.
My teacher was a little pissed, but he talked to me after class, and turned out, he still had his famicom and bunch of games!!!
DAMN, AND HE SOLD IT TO ME FOR 30 BUCKS!!!!
HA, he said it would help me in his class!!
Got every Dragon Quest, and a bunch of other great games.
I'm thinking of traveling to japan and buying more, I could buy a god damn plane ticket with the prices' of imports these days!
But I have crazy luck with console finds.
I once bought a Super Famicom with Seiken Densetsu III and a couple other RPG's (Treasure Hunter G, anyone?;-D)
from a crazy crackhead's garage sale for 15 bucks. I think it was loot from some japanese people he robbed or something.

I probably said this in another topic but I don't mind recalling memory again. When we got digital cable, we got G4 when it had the sweet shows that aren't on anymore. Game Makers was on and it was the history of Nintendo episode. They showed the famicom and I remember thinking that it looked cool and very japanese like... I was 15 at the time. I had it in the back of my head until I came across Japan Game Stock which sells the famicom and I knew that I had to have it because of how cool it looked and the fact that it was foreign and from the country nintendo is based in.

Overall, the look of it got me in and the idea of how there are differences (some times) between japanese and american releases of video games.

I got into Famicom mainly because of my past, I lived surrounded by famiclones and pirate carts but didn't have the money for them. Now that I do, I have been hunting them down. I also got into the original games as well and well the collection kept growing. It's funny because Famicom collecting got me into NES collecting then to SNES collecting so I became an all around collector which means I have to be careful in my purchases since I have a small place. But after 2000 games bought, I can say I'm not stopping anytime soon...har har har!

I really likes boxed goods and picked up a boxed famicom on ebay for 40$.  Then instead of using the famicom to play famicom disc games I hooked up my toploader and played the disc games using the nes to famicom converter and my famicom disc drive...worked great..Love the famicom system ever since then...

Because it's badass, goes well with beer too!

In the late 90s I had a Spica system with a bunch of supervision carts, small nes box games, famicom converter etc.  I loved that system but lent it to a friend and being a teenager forgot about it.  Now I realise much of what I had would be valuable but hey if this stuff was still common the value wouldnt' be there right!

Anyway much older, a little wiser and with a bit more cash behind me I have begun building myself a classic games room - aiming for 8 bit - 64 bit collecting which really is where the majority of my gaming memories lie.

My friend Jose's super-bootleg Famicom (we called it the Plasticom, damn near no metal in the system period, and it was built like sheer garbage) and his pile of bootleg carts from Mexico. Terrible ROM hacks, Mario sprites pasted into Armadillo, and the like. The best of the pile was "Super Mario Family", a pirate cart with Mario 1 (with Mario 2 (J)'s CHR ROM inserted for god knows what reason), Mario 2 (US), Mario 2 (J, hacked from FDS), Mario 3 US, Mario 3 JP, Armadillo, and ... Bowling? Awesome.

Later I bought a copy of "Jetman" on eBay (and later found more copies for $5 each in Japan, har) and got a cheap Famiclone in Japan to play it on. Later I found some legit systems and started collecting the more interesting ones. Currently sitting on a few HVC-101s, HVC-001s, FDS drives and 2 Sharp Twin FCs, one of which needs to be put back together.

The pile of FC carts reaches the ceiling twice. I think I need to invest in some kind of case to store these things in...

I think I really got into Famicom collecting through the back door : the FDS. I've always had a bunch of NES games but I've never been a big fan of the console (I'm about to explain, stop throwing rocks at me ;) ). Not because of the quality of the games, but rather the video quaity - the screen was buzzing like hell. I don't know if it's related to the fact that I'm French (maybe a Pal /Secam format thingy), but everytime I'd play the NES at a friend's house then I'd be annoyed by the buzzing on the screen. I rediscovered the Famicom when I got my first Famicom Disk - the rest is history :D

The majority of members here are North American and European, so we didn't exactly get raised on the Famicom. I'm curious how people here came to getting into a console that wasn't really native to most of our home countries. I've seen a few users here touch on it here and there, but I figured I'd start a thread to get a few more answers.

I actually first saw a Famicom in probably the Angry Video Game Nerd's Transformers review. While the game looked bad, I've got enough Transformers nostalgia that I said to myself, "Damn, I should buy one of those and play it for myself." As soon as I figured out I had a Famicom adapter inside my five-screw copy of Wrecking Crew, I bought Transformers: Convoy no Nazo off eBay and the rest is history.

Playing random games on emulator long ago, and discovering the sad reality that so many great games were left to Japan-exclusive obscurity. After discovering wonderful game after game, I just had to own these games so I could get the full experience out of them.

One of my biggest regrets in life i sold my entire video game collection that was 23 years worth of collecting about 6 years ago that included 400+ nes games. when I finally decided to restore my collection about 4 years ago I didn't want to pay super high prices for nes games I already had gotten for really cheap so I started collecting famicom cause they are still the same games but new to me in there diffrent cart forms not to mention cheaper. Also nes/famicom has always been my favorite system. Since I've started restoring my collection it's now bigger and better then ever with the exception of about 200 nes games I used to have plus a ton of cd-I stuff. It's sucks how bad the vintage gaming world is jaded now it was such a cheap fun hobby a few years ago now that vintage gaming has been declared "hip" in our modern times now its become a monopoly for so many greedy resellers.

I guess I was just lucky, but there was an import game shop in my hometown during the golden age of gaming. I must have been 7 or 8 years old when my grandma bought me a Honey-Bee converter.  :)

SAILOR MOON!
Thats the short answer :P

Many years ago I saw a CIB copy of Recca for sale on eBay, decided I wanted it despite the cost, and bought it. Then I bought a system to play it on. Then I figured I might as well buy some other games for the console too...

hmm i guess being a pal user its cheaper and easier to find famicom games and hardware then ntsc/u nes and i cant live with 50hz anymore.

I just started collecting for the Famicom/ and Super Famicom last year ,due to my love for anything Japanese .

Getting my hands on Akumajo Densetsu and discovering how a Gyromite converter was not enough to get the VRC6 goodness.

Since then, I've modded my NES and gyro converter to do it but a AV, classic, and Twin came first.

I saw a video of Namcot's Star Wars game and I just had to have it.

Several of you are touching on the exclusive games, and that's what I most related with. My Famicom carts have become my second-largest group among my game collection, and almost all of them are Japanese exclusives. There were just so many good 8-bit Nintendo games that we in NES countries just never had a chance to see. That's what got me hooked.

I'm not really sure what got me specifically interested in the Famicom.  I had been into collecting NES stuff for a number of years already, and was pretty aware of Famicom stuff via emulation, but I don't remember if there was a specific flag that was set and made me decide to get one.  I simply decided on one of my birthdays that I would buy myself a Famicom and a couple of games (Tetris 2 + Bombliss and Hanjuku Eiyuu).

One of my college room mates and I tried to translate Hanjuku Eiyuu while we were still in college.  It was my first big delve into rom hacking and exploring the FC/NES at a hardware level.  It wasn't until a few years after we had given up on that project that I went and bought a Famicom, but I'm guessing that was probably what planted the seed.

Said room mate lives in Japan now, and suspects that my Famicom collection is larger than his despite the fact that I'm still in America :D

I was into NES collecting since I as 16 since me and my family would play the living crap out of it until we got a Sega Genesis. The NES was my favorite  with the Genesis being my second favorite.

Eventually I got online and learned about all the obscure and awesome games there were for the NES that I became more enthralled with it all and eventually learned about the Famicom and how weird it looked. I never really understood back then why the system looked so...weird. But I liked it.

Fast forward to when I was 18 and I learned about how many exclusives there was for the console and the FDS. I knew I wanted one so I could play my first game I ever wanted to try, "Devil World". So sure enough, I bought a Famicom off ebay, got given a few other games (including Devil World.  8) ) and the rest is really history.

Like 80'sFreak, I don't really have many games. Mostly just games I know that were highly recommended. Still have my NES + my Famicom hooked up to my TV. All the gaming i'll ever need. :)

I would look through Funcoland's game lists and notice Gradius III and wonder whatever happened to Gradius II? ???

In 2005 I downloaded the rom, and to my surprise it was all in English, but it was too awkward to play on a keyboard (this was before RetroUSB [or before I knew about it]), so I looked into buying the game and found out about converters.

Then I bought a CIB copy of Gradius II! ;D Still my favorite of the series.

I'm guessing Konami's VRC games are a major reason for us importing Famicoms. Crisis Force and Gradius II are incredible games, and the enhanced soundtrack to Akumajou Densetsu is also awesome. And the VRC games are not terribly practical to make NES repros of; most of the guys I've seen even offer are just going to require the FC version and probably a Gyromite with converter for donor parts.

Honestly, I find people who make these kinds of repros are just wasting their time; they're not saving people any money, in the case of enhanced audio games you're going to either lose it or pull off something like this (http://hackaday.com/2012/09/22/adding-famicom-audio-channles-to-an-nes-without-messing-up-the-console/), & I find the aesthetics of the small, compact box & booklet is in better taste than the pirate-quality haphazard repro boxart that's been so rampant these days (http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=6&threadid=104712).

Funny, there was a time when reproductions used to be exceptional; now the market's too saturated.

I think people get NES repros of FC exclusives for many reasons; some of them are pretty valid and some are just not.

I have several NES repros of FC RPGs (Earthbound Zero, Sweet Home, Final Fantasy II and III); the translations make those games playable for me, and I wanted to play them on original hardware. That's a good reason for a repro, I think.

I have a repro of Super Mario Brothers 2J. It's a game I wanted to play, and I'm frankly never going to own an FDS. Given the rampant unreliability of that hardware, I have no interest in spending my time, money, and energy pursuing those. The alternative would be FC pirate carts, which are typically expensive and unattractive compared to NES repros.

I also have a repro of Recca, which I picked up before I started collecting Famicom stuff. It's also an obvious one for a lot of people, especially because the original cart is outrageously rare and expensive. I can similarly relate to people getting repros for Bio Miracle Bokutte Upa or Moon Crystal for the same reasons, even if I have original FC carts of those. (I have considered adding a Moon Crystal repro, so I can actually understand the story in the cutscenes...)

Custom creations like the enhanced cart for the CastleVania III you linked to are almost more out of the category of "Things a Tinkerer Tinkered with to see if it was even possible." As an oddity, they're kind of interesting. I don't think they'll ever get mass produced, and I'm glad. Those are kind of silly, I think, and they tend to get expensive. If I needed to buy a Crisis Force, I can either buy it and an adapter (or FC console), or I can buy it, an adapter cart (like an early Gyromite), and THEN pay additional shipping and labor for a repro guy to get the same game back in a single case. To me, that's just goofy.

The Gimmick! repros are conflicting. It's nice to see more people able to afford the game, but I'm bummed that the only donor board appears to be NES Return of the Joker carts (which are uncommon to begin with). It was cool to see RetroUSB offer them from all-new parts; I'm always happy to see more good games out there, as long as we're not losing something rare or wanted to begin with. I think he did SMB 2J carts, too, which seemed silly because all I think you need to do that is a worthless launch title cart (and we're not hurting for copies of Ten Yard Fight).

But what I really don't get is the people who get repro carts of things like Devil World, Dig Dug, Transformers, and stuff like that. Why pay $25 for a bootleg made in some dude's garage when you get an original of these games for $10 or so?

... But I guess these thoughts made me branch out into Famicom collecting in the first place. I guess that sort of ties this long tangent of a post back to the original thread.

Many of these reasons are exactly why I started buying repros:

SMB2J: not going to buy an FDS
Final Fantasy II: it was a prototype that never made it to the states

But with games that are already in English & were released on the FC, I found it more feasible just to import them.

And with Final Fantasy III (and most translations), someone had to take the time to translate it, & then the whole ethics of buying a translated game in which the original translator isn't getting a cent of the money for the repro comes up.

So that's where the Power Pak comes in.

By the way, I found this quote by you very unusual, & I am trying to make sense of it. Magicantian suggested that you play the translated RockBoard on a flashcart, but you replied with this:

Quote from: nerdynebraskan on August 02, 2013, 06:27:23 am
@Mag

I would buy an NES repro before I did that. It'd be a cool one to have on a physical cart.

Wouldn't it make more sense to play it on a flashcart first to make sure it's a game you're willing to keep a hard copy of in the long run? ??? This comes from personal experience.

I'll go ahead and respond, at the risk of further derailing the thread in repro discussion.

1) I don't see repros or flash carts being any more or less fair to game translators, because they're both just mediums for us to play translated ROMs on original hardware. And the translators aren't getting paid by guys making flash carts or repros. Some of these guys even put in the fine print of their operations that they're really not selling you the game, since the ROM is freely available online for emulation (even if the legality is something of a gray area). Their claim, which isn't too outrageous, is that they're simply doing the hardware work.

2) As per my previous post in the other thread, there are perhaps a few personal details about me that would make the comment make more sense to you. First of all, I don't own a flash cart. Thus, trying Rockboard that way would be more expensive for me than a repro, since I'd first have to buy a much more expensive flash cart.

Second of all, I'm a huge Mega Man fan. I mentioned that in the thread you pulled the quote from, but you may have missed that part. Even if I did decide to buy a flash cart for my ROM hacks, unreleased prototypes, and fan translations, I'd still get a kick out of having another repro with Mega Man fan art on it. I think I'm going to get at least one repro fan hack sequel to every classic MM game, too.

Finally, I pretty much already know I'd like the game. I own an original FC cart of it, and have tried it a bit. Though the Japanese menus confused me, and I've yet to explore all the options as a result, I still had fun with it on my limited playtime with it. It's pretty much a Monopoly knockoff where you can blow up the other players' hotel-equivalents with classic Robot Masters. What Mega Man fan wouldn't enjoy that?

Quote from: nerdynebraskan on August 03, 2013, 08:50:16 pm
First of all, I don't own a flash cart.

Aah, I see. Here I thought you had an N8. :-[  Missed that if .

Quote from: nerdynebraskan on August 03, 2013, 08:50:16 pm
It's pretty much a Monopoly knockoff where you can blow up the other players' hotel-equivalents with classic Robot Masters. What Mega Man fan wouldn't enjoy that?

Me! I need to jump and shoot!

@nightstar

I can't say I'm surprised by your answer. And while platformers are also my favorite genre, I like a variety of games. I play a little bit of everything. My FC collection has platformers, shooters, puzzles, and Rock Board. And I'm only limited to those because of langauge barriers. I also have RPGs and board games in my NES collection. (Hell, even a handful of sports games...)

The first time I have been made aware of Famicom games was when another kid brought a NES Multicart to primary school. This cart was quite a phenomenon and everyone tried to get their hands on it and borrow it for a few days. When a friend and I got hold of it we were amazed about the stunning 'Sky Destroyer' and asked ourselves 'Why don't we get such great games?'....

Fast forward to the year 2000. I went to Japan to visit a friend I'd met in a language school. Meanwhile, I got into NES games again and knew about the existance of the Famicom, but I was not really interested in it for some reason.... Anyway, during this first stay in Japan I only bought one (1!) Famicom game: a loose copy of Dragonbuster.  ::)

It took another few years until I started reading about the history of the Famicom and the amount of Japan-only games. Thus, last year I took the chance when my girlfriend gave me some days off and flew to Japan again - this time I went proper game hunting. And I had a great time!  :)

I have started playing these Famicom games in 2009 or something on emulator.
Sometime in 2012 I have watched Dendy Chronicles #1 from Kinaman, and was really surprised to see what Mario games there were on pirate carts in Russia and was interested in getting myself a Famicom or a clone system and play games on real cartridges. In summer 2012, I have wanted to get a Famiclone, and got one (Simba's, shaped like Famicom, but it's NOAC clone),so I finally could play my old Famicom carts that my grandparents had since 90s along with GameStar Famiclone (shaped like Sega Mega Drive 2), which also was in fact the very first clone I have played Famicom games on. Still working, but it's RF quality is crap.
After I got Simba's Famiclone I was interested to get some official Famicom carts. My first official carts are Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Galaga, Twin Bee, Lode Runner, Mach Rider and Pinball.

Since them, I am collecting some Famicom carts (official&pirate carts)  along with Famiclones, even though I got a real Famicom this summer.

There are still some games I really want to get on Famicom, but later about it.  :)

It started around 1991. My parents found an ad saying "Nintendo Game Cartridge with over 100 games!" The guy wanted something like $200 for it. We decided to get Castlevania: The Adventure for GB instead the guy was selling instead ($10), since what would we do if that cartridge broke?

Fast Forward to 1998. I had the internet, and stumbled upon NESWorld, where I learned there was a Final Fantasy II and III released in Japan? I had to know more, then I discovered Emulator and ROMs.

A few days later, I was working at my dad's game store on a fairly boring night. A guy comes in with 2 NES games and an Orange 52-in-1 NTDEC Famicom cart connected to a converter. I told the guy I'd give him $6 for them all. He said the Fami game had a lot of games and he'd take $9, so I gave him the money. After being bored of it, we sold it to a lady who wanted it for her son for $50.

Now Fast Forward to the summer of 2007. I discovered a Fami converter in my Gyromite! I was at the Classic Gaming Expo in Las Vegas, when fairly famous collector DreamTR was selling a bunch of Fami games. I saw Batman, and bought it to try out the converter. Then I discovered this website, and the rest is history.

I had been collecting NES games for many years (20+) basically since the system came out.  I was aware of the Famicom but it always seemed really cheap looking to me.  Then when I got close to collecting every NES game I started to realize that I wanted to play and collect the Japanese games that weren't released in the USA.  I had played many on a PowerPak but wanted to play them on the real thing because I felt that it wasn't the same.  I bought a Famicom and the Disk system and a few games.  Mainly because I wanted to play SMB2J.  I bought a brand new disk and opened it and I was hooked.  I sold a bunch of my american games (around 300 of them) and replaced many of them with famicom games.  Mainly due to price.  I sold so many american games and got the japanese ones, which almost all of the time were cheaper and better either with enhanced gameplay graphics or sound, not to mention they take up about half the space.  Now I am totally hooked and I prefer the look of the Red white fami to the look of the american toaster NES.  Truth be told I still use my NES although I use a toploader that I AV modded as well as my famicom but I love the shit out of using the fami with the FDS, there is simply nothing like it.  So cool.

Actually, I just kind of collect pretty much anything that can be considered a game system (even edutainment systems like the v.smile) if I can get them reasonably cheaply. I had the luck of finding a cheapish famicom twin on ebay one day and followed it up with some games for it.

I started collecting because I planned a trip to Japan for September from April.  My goal was to go there, visit, and bring back a Famicom and some good games.  I realized later that I could find better deals online than in Super Potato so I sort of lost my patience and started buying up.

I'm still going to buy games in Japan, but now I know the ones that I will be able to get a better deal on.

Also Famicom games are so much better than their English counterparts.  No censorship, better gameplay mechanics, and music puts a whole new spin on older games.

I have played video games ever since I was around 5 years old when we borrowed a friend's NES. We eventually got our own NES (and so did almost every family with kids at the time) and I never really stopped playing NES games.
Collecting Famicom games just came naturally since I always had an interest in anything Japanese and often imported Japanese games. When I was younger I used to have this romantic idea that the Japanese versions was always better in every way (which of course isn't always true), and also that America got much more games than we (which they did). Many people hardly even knew that the RPG genre existed (however Sega players got Phantasy Star and other games).

My NES was eventually thrown in the garbage (bad connector I suppose) without my knowledge so now I only have my Famicom.

I bought a Super 8 because I didn't have an NES and wanted to play some 8-bit games on my SNES. Then I saw it had a Famicom cart slot, so I thought, "well, guess it's time to finally buy Devil World."

45 Famicom carts, an AV Famicom and a Sharp Twin Turbo later, I am a Famicom diehard. Would love to get Metal Storm and Moon Crystal next!

It's in my blood! Well, I actually played Famicom in my childhood and have always remembered all the experiences I had with it especially by playing those very odd pirates out there (Mario 8). Finally, all grown up, I decided to pursue the Fami-collecting venture and stumbled on this site while searching for Famicom games on google. I started collecting Famicom but then my love of NES came back with it and therefore started collecting NES. The love spread all over the rest of the retro consoles until I started collecting everything. I'm very picky about what I keep in my collection nowadays. You may see all of these amazing finds I have but the truth is, very few make it to my roster therefore keeping my collection very unique. I don't believe in collecting all the games like others out there, I just want my favorites. I really don't understand why people want them all, this is not Pokemon you know and even in that game I still only want my favorites. Anyways, I will keep collecting Famicom until I'm quite satisfied with my collection but that might take years upon years. I'm never happy with my collection so there will always be changes.

totally being forever alone for the years got me started into playing/collecting famicom games :crazy:

@FamicomFreak

Good call. I'm the same way: I only put games I'll actually play into my permanent collection. Everything else I stumble across gets traded or resold for something more interesting.

Quote from: FamicomFreak on February 06, 2010, 12:41:10 pm
I got into Famicom mainly because of my past, I lived surrounded by famiclones and pirate carts but didn't have the money for them. Now that I do, I have been hunting them down. I also got into the original games as well and well the collection kept growing. It's funny because Famicom collecting got me into NES collecting then to SNES collecting so I became an all around collector which means I have to be careful in my purchases since I have a small place. But after 2000 games bought, I can say I'm not stopping anytime soon...har har har!

Quote from: FamicomFreak on August 30, 2013, 12:38:37 am
It's in my blood! Well, I actually played Famicom in my childhood and have always remembered all the experiences I had with it especially by playing those very odd pirates out there (Mario 8). Finally, all grown up, I decided to pursue the Fami-collecting venture and stumbled on this site while searching for Famicom games on google. I started collecting Famicom but then my love of NES came back with it and therefore started collecting NES. The love spread all over the rest of the retro consoles until I started collecting everything. I'm very picky about what I keep in my collection nowadays. You may see all of these amazing finds I have but the truth is, very few make it to my roster therefore keeping my collection very unique. I don't believe in collecting all the games like others out there, I just want my favorites. I really don't understand why people want them all, this is not Pokemon you know and even in that game I still only want my favorites. Anyways, I will keep collecting Famicom until I'm quite satisfied with my collection but that might take years upon years. I'm never happy with my collection so there will always be changes.

You have posted your story twice. Hehe.

well it all started when i was on ebay looking for super mario kart. it was alot more expensive then i thought like $20 - $25. But in the ebay search  i came across a listing for 3 mario games, super mario kart, super mario world, and super mario rpg all for $21.00 shipped. i couldnt believe it. but i noticed they looked different from normal snes carts and then i realised they were super famicom carts. reading about super famicom, i realized modifying your snes can play sfc games, so i bought the three games,and still to this day have and play them regularly.

honestly, not much of a NES/famicom fan, mainly like to just collect certain famicom games/accessories but not play them.
primarily, i play my SFC or modded SNES (or N64) as those are the consoles i prefer.

Oh... We already one of these threads, and a ninja mod has merged them. Sorry... I guess I should've tried to search for a thread like this before starting a new one.

For me, it was also living in Japan.

I'm not living in Japan anymore (came back at the end of March), but I did ship back my entire games collecton.. haha.

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.

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.

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.

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.   

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.

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.

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.

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.

Quote from: FamilyMan on December 12, 2014, 06:15:29 am
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. 

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.

Quote from: fcgamer on December 12, 2014, 09:16:41 am

Quote from: FamilyMan on December 12, 2014, 06:15:29 am
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. 

:)

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.

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.

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

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.

Well, first I got into NES and retro gaming in general with Animal Crossing for the Gamecube as well as the Nintendo E-Reader for GBA. That's where I played NES launch titles for the first time.

Then I got NES Classics Series Super Mario Bros. and Zelda for GBA when I was 10 and played the crap out of these games.

Then when I was 12, I convinced my parents to let me buy an old used NES, which they thought made absolutely no sense. My bro told me to just emulate everything and be a turd. I got my first NES with Mario/Duckhunt, Dragon Warrior, and Final Fantasy for like $150. I was a sucker back then when I was not allowed to buy stuff online, so I had to go to a local game shop in Canada  :( 

Then I looked online and saw the Famicom, being all red and white, and with the awesome BASIC keyboard set to make games, I thought this was just the definitive version of the NES. I always wanted one, but couldn't get one online till I was a bit older. Then I became a member here!! :)

I got into Famicom because I thought collecting import games would be pretty cool, and would make a nice conversation piece.

Originally it was simply because I became interested in many of the Famicom-exclusive games. Especially many of Konami's games. I also started watching Chrontendo and Gamecenter CX so I discovered more and more of them that way. These days it's also because prices on a lot of NES games are ridiculous while the FC versions are still reasonable in many cases. The lower prices allows me to get more CIB games too which is always nice.

The console and cartridges look so much cooler than their US counterparts. I grew up playing on the Sega Master System and the NES (well my cousins NES). Much later I saw pictures of the original Famicom in a magazine and vowed to get one. Flash forward many years later and here I am.

I collect Legend of Zelda games and merch and last year there was a complete copy of Legend of Zelda for the Famicom Disk System along with a twin system for sale at a conventions I was at. The money I was going to spend on a bunch of merch turned into just getting that console and games. Later found out that it was a good investment to get the twin system since it had an av out and the original famicom didn't. Now my collection spans into imported zelda games.  :link:

Basically when my weeaboo phase collided with my love of retrogaming(and adding onto that, it has a very good selection of Namco games).
(The phase has ended, but my FC stuff continues because the Famicom is awesome)

i got tired of collecting Philips Cd-i stuf for over 10 years, having collected nearly every bit of hardware and games ever released,
when i remembered my first famiclone, a Polystation-like thing for which i never got carts, but only played the built-in games.
it got lost years earlier and i set out to find a replacement, the first thing that got me was the variety of available clone systems,
so i started collecting those immediately.
i only got my first Original Famicom a couple of years ago, and still collect clones and unlicensed games mostly.
and i have only played Cd-i games once or twice since.
along with a handfull of Megadrive, Master system and SNES games.

Seems it was sheer curiosity. That and I started to dislike how big the NES Front Loader is. I thought of getting a NES 2, but it's RF only and rather expensive. The AV Famicom was a bit cheaper and supported composite by standard, so I went with that. For a while I was sticking with NES carts with an adapter and whatever else I could find on Famicom, but lately I've been buying FC versions of what I already owned on NES, mostly because the carts are smaller and don't need an adapter.

Overall the Famicom has been one heck of a fun adventure. It's got that NES familiarity, but is also mysterious and unknown. There are so many exclusives on Famicom and it has a smaller cart slot, it's almost like a different console from the NES.

Hmmm... Hard to say what exactly. I think it had to do with the interesting look of the cartridges relative to their NES counterparts and the idea of having the original releases of certain games instead of localized ones.

What got me into the Famicom was this site, and some emulation. To this day, I still emulate Famicom games (mainly because my actual Famicom died on me), but I love the simple charm of the system, how it looks, the type of games compared to our NES (albeit I grew up with NES), just everything about it screams "retro japan". Plus, I'm considering about learning Japanese to better understand the original games, so I don't have to hunt down fan translations (although that's not a bad thing).

I'm probably the only person who swapped the guts out of the NES and Famicom controllers out of preference's sake.

I started because the carts were pretty  :-[ , but I stuck around because of how solid the library is!

Quote from: JohnnyBlaze on December 30, 2014, 08:09:01 pm
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.

Aw, shucks!  :D

For a while, i've been quite interested in Famicom aesthetics and library of games that never made it to the US. So as of a few days ago with my tax return money, i've decided to buy one on ebay. Now i'm just waiting for it's arrival to my front door step. In addition to that, i've also decided to buy an everdrive. Knowing how stupid expensive the hobby can get, space it can take up, and rare a lot of the good games can be. It just seemed like the best decision for me. Here's a link to the Famicom I just got: http://www.ebay.com/itm/271667633329?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT   

Because it is the most beautiful gaming machine on the market! :D

I just started collecting for the Famicom/ and Super Famicom last year ,due to my love for anything Japanese .

The American NES was the first gaming system I ever encountered. SNES was the first I owned, but NES was always the first love.

I bought a Famicom along with a handful of games in Japan when I visited some friends back in 2006. Several years later, I fried that Famicom by using the wrong AC adapter. Last year, I got around to replacing that Famicom and that rekindled my love for the hobby. I picked up a disk system and have probably tripled my game collection - by now I may have as many FC games as I have NES games.

It's just a really interesting time for game history, to me. The huge physical differences between the NES and the FC really show the differences between video game and business culture between the US and Japan back then. I like my uniform gray NES carts, but sometimes I like my colorful array of FC cassettes even more. I feel like no other chapter in gaming history has such a variety between the system versions.

I too love the multicolored variety of Famicom carts. The way the cart color compliments the label art on so many makes them the prettiest carts ever made. I wish they had stuck to that with the Super Famicom.

I've been into Japanese things since 1999 (due to anime and Pokemon etc) and one day at my regular bootleg supply store in the early 2000's there was a Famiclone connected to a TV blasting out Adventure Island's memorable title tune. I had some time to spare so decided to give it a go. After spending a good 15 minutes or so I was hooked and little me wandered home with a Famiclone instead of some bootleg trading cards.

The Famiclone I brought had about 30 games built in (minus the sports events levels that were counted as games) but the only ones I really played were Adventure Island, Binary Land and Magic Jewelry. Incidentally the first games I brought for my Famicom were Adventure Island and Binary Land (I'm sad that Magic Jewelry isn't an official game so individual carts are a bit harder to get or I would have got that too).

I knew that Adventure Island was a NES game originally but one day I decided to Google "Binary Land" and learned about the Famicom. Nothing eventuated from that but a few years later I saw an AV modded Famicom on Ebay in my country and on a whim said "yeah I'll get that" . Now I'm hooked ;)

When i was a kid, i saw a black thing, with 2 controllers, with Rockman integrated, i knew later that this is a gaming console called FAMICLONE, i enjoyed the game a lot ;D, speialy gutsman stage and fireman stage.
This was my begining of famicom world ;D
I talk about the year 1989  :)

Basically, I grew up with NES, then my NES disappeared on me and years later I re-discovered NES via emulation and wanted a console but since getting a NES now wouldn't be MY NES so to speak, I instead came across a Twin Famicom and noticed that japanese versions of games very much cheaper than european ones. There's a certain something sticking a cartridge in and turning on the power has over "File > Load > play".

I collect as many systems as I can not going to bore you with a list, it began when I dug out my original NES from when I was a kid..
I fixed the blinking light issue grabbed all the games I had & filled in the spaces with games I had played & lost
my megadrive(genesis) is modded to 50/60hz like a few of my systems are but I'm in PAL territory so my nes wasn't equipped to handle 60hz & ntsc games

after researching for a good while I wanted a NES101 AV (ntsc nes101) but kept finding the famicom
so I began looking into the av fami and never looked back
I have an adapter so if I find NTSC games I can use it on my fami & I love how fami carts are multicoloured
a once sea of grey is transformed into a psychedelic rainbow of games

I only own 20 games I don't know any japanese at all but it hasn't prevented me from enjoying the famicom one bit!

Five reasons :

1.  I was able to buy a new Famicom AV in the box from A.I. Trading Group (http://www.goldenshop.com.hk/) back when they were $129.99.

2.  No issues with the cartridge connector

3.  Famicom expansion sound and disk system support.

4.  Best composite video quality

5.  Everdrive N8 Famicom version (eventually)

Drawbacks :

1.  No Famicom microphone support

2.  Never found a really good 72-to-60 pin converter. 

Quote from: Great Hierophant on May 31, 2015, 01:29:29 pm
Five reasons :

2.  Never found a really good 72-to-60 pin converter. 

I use one I got from http://www.gamedoctorhk.com/ I have to say it's really good, and if you want gimmick repro with extra sound it only need very minor modification to work

Which one is it? They are selling one with shell and one without.

Quote from: P on May 31, 2015, 02:24:17 pm
Which one is it? They are selling one with shell and one without.

I bought the shelled one
http://gamedoctorhk.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=72_1_17_121&products_id=946

I also modded it for extra sound as I was going to buy a gimmick repro but I managed to get a real copy so I didn't need to mod it

Here is a how to:
http://fami-complex.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/how-to-get-extra-sound-channels-from.html

Quote from: liquidco2 on May 31, 2015, 01:35:02 pm

Quote from: Great Hierophant on May 31, 2015, 01:29:29 pm
Five reasons :

2.  Never found a really good 72-to-60 pin converter. 

I use one I got from http://www.gamedoctorhk.com/ I have to say it's really good, and if you want gimmick repro with extra sound it only need very minor modification to work

They have an issue where two Famicom pins are tied together where they should be separately wired, like all cheap options.  While this causes no difficulty for most games, it will with games like Castlevania 3, After Burner and Gauntlet.  It also has no housing, so the cartridge adapter puts stress on the slot and the pins instead of the plastic around the slot.  The lack of a housing makes it less stable by giving the cartridge a less firm base to sit on.

As I say above I purchased the one with the housing and I seperated the pins and put in resistors in place for extra audio

I'm in pal territory but the adapter is good for 1 game for me and that's lifeforce other than that all my games run too fast due to pal being a rubbish format.

I'm not the most knowledgeable person with soldering but the modification took less than 5mins to do.

Quote from: liquidco2 on May 31, 2015, 11:48:11 pm
As I say above I purchased the one with the housing and I seperated the pins and put in resistors in place for extra audio

I'm in pal territory but the adapter is good for 1 game for me and that's lifeforce other than that all my games run too fast due to pal being a rubbish format.

I'm not the most knowledgeable person with soldering but the modification took less than 5mins to do.

I have been unjust to the one with the housing.  I forgot that I actually have one and modded it some time ago to support games like Castlevania 3 and the PowerPak.  I did not think it worked because I saw some strange lines when I tried the PowerPak.  However, I tried it just now with Castlevania 3, After Burner, Gemfire and Laser Invasion.  They all worked once I cleaned the pins.  The PowerPak worked as well.  While the NES cartridge connector on that adapter is still a bit tight and the plastic is still cheap, once modded it is the best overall solution.  

I got into the Famicom after watching You Can Play This! a web series about import games and consoles, but it mostly focused on Famicom games, and I thought that I would want to get one.

Oh You Can Play This I liked it too. JewWario is sadly no longer with us however.

Quote from: Great Hierophant on June 01, 2015, 07:18:19 am

Quote from: liquidco2 on May 31, 2015, 11:48:11 pm
As I say above I purchased the one with the housing and I seperated the pins and put in resistors in place for extra audio

I'm in pal territory but the adapter is good for 1 game for me and that's lifeforce other than that all my games run too fast due to pal being a rubbish format.

I'm not the most knowledgeable person with soldering but the modification took less than 5mins to do.

I have been unjust to the one with the housing.  I forgot that I actually have one and modded it some time ago to support games like Castlevania 3 and the PowerPak.  I did not think it worked because I saw some strange lines when I tried the PowerPak.  However, I tried it just now with Castlevania 3, After Burner, Gemfire and Laser Invasion.  They all worked once I cleaned the pins.  The PowerPak worked as well.  While the NES cartridge connector on that adapter is still a bit tight and the plastic is still cheap, once modded it is the best overall solution.  

I heard these adapters often bridge 48 and 49 instead of joining them to NES pins 57 and 58 so that MMC5 games work. Does After Burner and Gauntlet also use any extra pins?

You Can Play This was a nice, informative series. I was sad when I found out he shot himself. I especially like his Penguin games episode, as well as Densha De Go! episode.

Quote from: P on June 02, 2015, 10:38:56 am
Oh You Can Play This I liked it too. JewWario is sadly no longer with us however.

Quote from: Great Hierophant on June 01, 2015, 07:18:19 am

Quote from: liquidco2 on May 31, 2015, 11:48:11 pm
As I say above I purchased the one with the housing and I seperated the pins and put in resistors in place for extra audio

I'm in pal territory but the adapter is good for 1 game for me and that's lifeforce other than that all my games run too fast due to pal being a rubbish format.

I'm not the most knowledgeable person with soldering but the modification took less than 5mins to do.

Gauntlet, Rad Racer II and After Burner work with this modification applied. 
I have been unjust to the one with the housing.  I forgot that I actually have one and modded it some time ago to support games like Castlevania 3 and the PowerPak.  I did not think it worked because I saw some strange lines when I tried the PowerPak.  However, I tried it just now with Castlevania 3, After Burner, Gemfire and Laser Invasion.  They all worked once I cleaned the pins.  The PowerPak worked as well.  While the NES cartridge connector on that adapter is still a bit tight and the plastic is still cheap, once modded it is the best overall solution.  

I heard these adapters often bridge 48 and 49 instead of joining them to NES pins 57 and 58 so that MMC5 games work. Does After Burner and Gauntlet also use any extra pins?

Gauntlet and Rad Racer II and After Burner all work once this mod is done, they do not require any other pin mods. 

I see, so both MMC5 games and these mentioned games uses 57 and 58.

I always had a fascination and appreciation for the Famicom and Super Famicon, it's only these days I have the resources to really put effort into starting a collection.  The original Japanese consoles always had more design sense and personality than the lifeless boxy versions released in the US, as well as the Famicom / Super Famicom cartridges and packaging.

I got into Famicoms while I was getting old consoles, starting with the NES. At the time I'd never really heard of the Famicom, but while I was reading up on the original Super Mario Bros. 2 (AKA The Lost Levels) I heard the names "Famicom" and 'Disk System", a lot of research later I got a copy of Super Mario Bros. 2 and I am now in the process of getting a Famicom and FDS.  ;D
I've just heard it's a pain hooking up a Famicom to to a non-Japanese TV.  ???

All of the strange little curiosities of the console as viewed by a westerner always made me pretty interested in the Famicom as a general collector. The subtle changes from game to game and the Japan-only games were part of what always made it part of my "I want to collect for this" list and own that part of game history but the thing that officially made me pick up some hardware was actually how incredibly fascinating the disk drive was and the game Nazo no Murasamejo, which has become one of my most favorite games of all time.

As it has been stated several times before, I'm getting into collecting and playing famicom games because I'm just tired of paying ridiculous prices for NES games I want to own and play. With these currently inflated prices I'm unable to attain some really fantastic games.  Famicom just makes perfect sense.  Not to mention the fact that I'll have access to many games that never saw a US release.  Or games with added sound or improved visuals.  I'm completely stoked.  This is just the perfect scenario for me, and I can't see myself reverting back.  I'm just bummed I didn't take this approach sooner.

I'd say it was a combination of Nuts and Milk, Mappy, and Final Fantasy III that finally did me in. The ability to play the definitive versions of games I hold dear (Castlevania III, Contra, Super Mario Bros 3) was an added bonus.

You might think that I'm crazy but I love the famicom because the multicolored cartidges ( The gray NES one seems a little boring to me) and the awesome Famicom Disk System which was the top technology of its era...

I grew up with the Famiclones and Famicom games alike...it's something that always gives me a warm feeling. It's just amazing..

I grew up with a SNES in the house, man it was so much fun! But then we visited some family in Mexico and I don't remember seeing that thing after that. I didn't play retro games since. I went through the GameCube and the Wii. I saw some cool Virtual Console Games on there, so I checked them out. I think the first thing I downloaded was Super Mario Bros. man that was fun! (And Hard!) But from that point on, I loved retro gaming.

I went to a garage sale for like my 14th birthday, and there was this CIB Action Set. Papers and All, and she was letting it go for like $50! We went home and hooked it up and quickly figured out that it didn't really work on the Flat Screen. It was weird, we tried and tried but it wasn't having any of that. Eventually I had an epiffany and brought out the old CRT from the garage and fired up Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt. And it worked! Duck hunt was like nothing i've seen before! I was blown away at how the system knew where I was pointing! It was amazing, the controls were tighter, there was character in the blurryness of the CRT. It was genuine fun. But those same 4 games got boring after a while and I sold it. I think I let it go for $35. (Terrible idea).

A couple years later, I stumbled across some hacks of Super Mario Bros. one of them was All Night Nippon Super Mario Bros. I had the worst time trying to play it on an emulator, so I did some research and found out about the Disk System. How Cool! Loading games from Disk Cards into the NES! That combined some extra cool points onto this whole thing. But then I found out that the NES over here was not the NES over there, overseas they have this cool, compact device with cute little controllers hardwired into the system, and cute little cartridges that never needed blowing on. It was so cool! (And Japanese, cause I have a thing for things from Japan.)

Just last Christmas I got some money and spent it on a Famicom. Getting it over here took a while (it was like March when I got it). And I remember the joy when I unwrapped it. It was so small! So Cool! So Dirty... I cleaned it. And it was awesome! I took it to school. Everyone was pumped to see Takeshi's Challenge. And I was cool. The cool kid with the imports. But I didn't get my disk system until recently, just for my 17th Birthday a couple months ago, I got some money, and got a FDS, SFC, and a couple of games for both. My childhood memories were remembered with Super Donkey Kong and Super Mario World. And Zelda no Densetsu gave a whole new experience of audio! That's what got me into it. It's pretty fun, and I just got into the programming scene. I'm mostly interested in FDS programming, as it allows you to run your code easily on original hardware.

;D Sorry this is pretty long...

I got into the Famicom through looking into the unlicenced/bootleg scene that was prevalent on the system in the late 80s-to-mid 90s (a little less so for everything that came afterwards) and wanting to find out who made them and which ones were unknown at the time as there really wasn't much info on those games on the internet when I got into them.

Even though the NES was sold here, few people bought one due to the booming PC market (among other reasons ::)) and with the system having basically run its course when I got into video games as a preschooler, I started with the 16-bit systems. Between the lack of nostalgia with the PAL NES and the lack of games (both official and unlicenced) compared to the Famicom, I decided to get the latter instead and I'm glad I did. ;D

My first consoles were actually a Megadrive and SNES, I had computers before that (Amstrad CPC 464 followed by an Amiga 500), but I remember playing NES games on friends' systems, Contra, Punch Out and Dodgeball.  I got in to the NES when I ported an emulator to an obscure South Korean handheld (anyone remember the Gamepark GP2X?) - extensive play testing meant that I discovered what a treasure trove of games the system has.

I preferred the faster gameplay of NTSC systems, so I swapped the motherboard out with a US one and kept that console for years.  I remember looking in to the history of the NES and discovering the Famicom, such an interesting looking system in comparison to the boring NES, and the cartridges are cool looking and not massively oversized.  There's something iconic about the diminutive little Fami, it's just a classic.  Best console ever made :)

I've wanted a Famicom since I got into the NES when I was in High School. I didn't have video games untilI was in my teens, my first system was the N64, but once I got a job in High School, I was curious about the consoles that came out before the N64, and well the games were much cheaper as well.

I really liked the NES but once I found out about the Famicom I really wanted on. It wasn't until this year that I finally got me hands on one. I really enjoy the system, especially for all the RPGs that came out on the system that weren't available for the NES.

Also I like the fact that the system in Japan seemed to be aimed towards a different audience, so the tone and writing in the game is more serious. I'd much rather play a translation of a NES or SNES games than the american version, purely because the NES and SNES of the late 80s and 90s seems to be aimed towards kids.

since the mid 80's when i went to a junior school friends birthday party - he had SMW on Super Famicom and it completely blew my mind.  :'( ;D

i recently was in Taiwan and purchased a famiclone with 120 games built-in for ~$20AUD and realized it was all anti-aliased and super shit looking, so I looked into it more and basically had to have real hardware. since this realization only mid 2015 I am now the proud owner of multiple Famicoms, 1 PAL NES (as this was my first Nintendo back in the day), 1 super famicom, 1 megadrive, 1 megadrive 2, 2  Famicom AV's, 1 TwinFC, 3 FDS units. lots of games and lots of accessories and many many hours of fun and enjoyment have been had.

i've learnt a lot about the board level stuff with these units and have done many AV mods, stereo mods, one NESRGB mod and heaps of FDS belts and tuning, including some success re-writing some of the old wiped 2.8" nintendo disks i own :) all thanks to sites like this and the all the resources on the internets.

im totally re-addicted to zelda1 :link: (only play FDS these days as the sounds are great) and love every minute of it (every day)

Was into NES big time in the US and when I moved to Japan I think I bought a Famicom and a small CRT my first week here (before I even bought chairs, a bed or lights for all the rooms in the house).  Been hooked ever since.  Unlike a lot of later systems, you can pick up and play nearly any Famicom game without knowing a lick of Japanese.  That REALLY helped when I first got here and barely spoke the language, much less knew kanji.

Now I'm continuing to be into the Famicom because my kids are getting into it.

The next generation of Famicom dojo?

Famiclones! Back in 2010 i got a Generation Nex clone. And prior to that i had never knew Famicoms had different cartridges than american games. So i researched the mysterious extra port on the Generation Nex. From that point on i've wanted a famicom and a disk system.  :redcart:

because it's THE GREATEST GAME MACHINE IN THE PLANET!
Just kidding. for me it was good ol Jew Wario and Somecallmejohnny.
and my obsession with bootlegs solidified i,

Had a NES from a young age and played a heap of games. Although I bought most consoles since then, the NES was always my favourite.

When a trip to Tokyo was planned, I decided it was a good time to get back into retro gaming. While i was over there, I made the decision to start collecting for the famicom due to my love of the NES. Bought a heap of cartridges onto get started without knowing what most of the games were. However, since coming back and seeing the prices on ebay, I wish I purchased more (a lot more!)  ;D

I would say childhood. I am totally honest when I say that I do not know anyone between perhaps 25 to 38 who didn't have a Famicom. Sure, PCE and other formats were also quite common but FC was like...more common than VHS:es haha.  ;D

Why? Well. I suppose it was due to 3 big reasons. 1: Price: The price for the FC were compared to most other formats of the time (MSX etc) a very affordable way for children to enjoy their games and the target group were most people with children. No matter if working, middle or upper class. 2: Marketing. Nintendo were like everywhere. Sure, cereal boxes, stickers, trading cards, even on cupmen (ramen)...But last but probably the most important: Schoolyards. Most of the marketing were not due to Nintendo themselves putting money into marketing but due to the simple fact that the limitations of what we actually could do during childhood regarding this type of media was far mor limited than it is today. 3: Game quality. Nintendo had a quality of seal that few other systems could even compete with. The games were of high quality and to get a cart really felt like you had a quality product in your hand. Of course that wouldn't really be that important to a child but maybe to parents?

I got my first Famicom for birthday and I grew up with the system (more or less). It has always been a part of me. Even if I were to sell my whole collection it will still be a big part of who I am and who I became. In many ways I could argue that FC was more than just a game console. It was a culture, and I am sure that this is a fact not only applied to Japan but to the rest of the world as well (at least were you had NES and such things).

Cheers  :redcart:

Great Words! I would say childhood too if famiclone count. :bub: I don't recall that I wrote here but i grew up with famiclones i used to have great games like Super Mario Bros.,Tiny Toon, Ninja gaiden 3, TMNT 1&3, Bomberman, Lode Runner ( and More!) with Captain Tsubasa Volume II: Super Striker which was a big deal at that time because it has Arabic language. :star:

Funny thing  ;D that at the time some one tell me that im playing with the computer i used to think in a way or another he is smart and more like human being like he is amused  ;D. More ridiculous i must heard some one say your playing with some guy in japan and i'm thinking the developer who made this game is now playing with me and challenge me!  ;D ;D ;D

All my games has gone but the idea of getting and have all the games that I love are in my mind so i got my first Famicom in 2011 or 2012 and i start my journey....

Quote from: Mo-hd on December 18, 2015, 12:13:35 am
Great Words! I would say childhood too if famiclone count. :bub: I don't recall that I wrote here but i grew up with famiclones i used to have great games like Super Mario Bros.,Tiny Toon, Ninja gaiden 3, TMNT 1&3, Bomberman, Lode Runner ( and More!) with Captain Tsubasa Volume II: Super Striker which was a big deal at that time because it has Arabic language. :star:

Funny thing  ;D that at the time some one tell me that im playing with the computer i used to think in a way or another he is smart and more like human being like he is amused  ;D. More ridiculous i must heard some one say your playing with some guy in japan and i'm thinking the developer who made this game is now playing with me and challenge me!  ;D ;D ;D

All my games has gone but the idea of getting and have all the games that I love are in my mind so i got my first Famicom in 2011 or 2012 and i start my journey....

Ironically people in the "west" found out about the Famicom/Famiclone during the 2000:s. With the same Irony it is a fact that the markets that did not get the NES officially released are the countries where the Famiclones were sprouting and growing. Russia, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Thailand is just a few examples of people who really got into Famicom gaming without even knowing it  ;D I remember a friend from Saudi who told me about Majid? Captain Majid? I am not sure, but I remember the name Majid (Tsubasa we call him in Japan). Hahaha. Good times  ;D

Yes. :D Captain Majed at the time i think with the anime and the game they came out with Arabic Names for the characters
compatible with the culture of the Middle East. The name Majed taken from former Saudi Arabian footballer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majed_Abdullah.

(http://www.arabwebpage.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Captain-Tsubasa-2-Ar-201202061955111.bmp)

BTW Kojiro Hyuga my favorite character.  ;D

Indeed it was a good times. :star:

I remember my first famicom games, Good times playing mario is missing, pka chu (smb hack, i never got world 2-3, super bros 11 (adventure island 3 hack,  first mario game i ever played, i was thinking it was mario 9 :P), circus charlie, formation z, contra, duck hunt, clay shooting, ice climber, yie air kung fu, lode runner,mario 16 (joe & mac),chack n pop and poyann.
and i found one of the carts
(http://s13.postimg.org/j0p177uuv/20160127_193154.jpg)

Famicom Dojo!

Knowing that Japan's version of Castlevania III was much easier then the version Americans got.. :bomb:
I couldn't tell the difference personally but eh. :bomb: :bomb:

Sweet Home!  Read about it in GameFan and really wanted to find out more about it.

Guradiusu Two!!   (http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/popnmusic/images/c/c5/Vic_Viper_Icon.png/revision/latest?cb=20150723200924)pew! pew!

I had Japanese neighbors back in the 80's who had kids my age. They'd always get games mailed to them so I was always playing stuff like Mario 3 and things like that well before they came out here. SFC I got to play super early as well  :)

cheaper than NES (for the most part) and I like the small form factor of the AV Famicom and cartridges/boxes, plus all the colors of the rainbow (just about) used on Famicom releases.

Overall it's a must better coolness factor for me vs our drab american NES.

Same with Super Famicom games and controllers (cheaper versions vs american - for the games that dont require english like platformers, etc and the colored buttons of super famicom controllers) Still have an american SNES though.

I like the design of the Famicom and the Twin Fami, as well as the smaller size of the carts. A lot of it comes down to the aesthetics which, while not mind blowing or anything, are still interesting to me. That, and some of the more interesting Japanese exclusives.

I discovered a sequel to Super Mario Bros, and I was hooked on the fds from there. I had to have my favorite games that they made for it. I was also drawn to the media. I haven't used a floppy disk in ages and thought how cool it would be to have a piece of history. I also could not pass up the chance to play doki doki panic!.

I'm literally brand new to this scene. I wanted to get into the 8-bit Nintendo world after collecting what I needed for my 16bit systems.
Currently only own Mario 3 and Robocop 2 but on the look out for other titles and wanting to get an FDS too.

The Legend of Zelda is my favorite video game series, and I really wanted to experience the original Japanese version. Just got my Famicom a couple of days ago... but of course my LOZ disk doesn't seem to work after the file select screen.  :'(

It's much cheaper. It's 60hz. And I wanted a Twin Famicom. Also, I'm learning Japanese.

I think I can trace back what got me in to famicom to one source: Chrontendo.  Dr. Sparkle's seminal chrongaming series tipped me off to just how many unique, interesting games were famicom exclusive.  That's when I started hunting the games down and found out that many were able to be had very affordably (especially if you buy from senseiman).  I think the first two famicom games I bought were Metro Cross and King Kong 2, followed by Devil World and Mighty Final Fight.  Good times.

Quote from: ZBomber on April 17, 2016, 10:38:28 pm
The Legend of Zelda is my favorite video game series, and I really wanted to experience the original Japanese version. Just got my Famicom a couple of days ago... but of course my LOZ disk doesn't seem to work after the file select screen.  :'(

You might want to pick up the famicom cart release of LOZ.  All the Japanese experience (including mic support) without the load times and unreliability.

Famiclones are cheaper than official NES systems so I got a famiclone instead of an NES.

Famicom Dojo!  8) The First Season, to be more specific.

Quote from: TheProGamer1991 on July 10, 2016, 11:22:48 am
Famicom Dojo!  8) The First Season, to be more specific.

Very likely it was this, plus a combination of what were unaffordable NES prices for me at this time, that got me into Famicom, too. Picked up a couple of great FC exclusives and some common games to kickstart my collection, my wife picked up an AN-505RD Twin Famicom Turbo, and I never looked back.

Well, except to Darkwing Duck. I'd love it if someone gave me a copy of that stupid game already. :)

Learned about the uncensored games in Japan, like "Hitler Come To Life". I was mesmerized ever since. To think that Nintendo released games with religious images, it was what hooked me. I only collect Famicom/FDS games and accessories now. :gamer:

I was really into bootleg carts, combined with the fact that I had a Famicom cart for collecting. These two got me into Famicom nearly a month ago, and it's going strong still. I might invest in getting an AV modded Famicom  or AV Famicom. Hopefull AV mod, so I can record narration using the II controller  ;D

For the most part, not the console itself, but the games available for it that weren't released on the western market. Also, a lot of the games that did get a North American release were censored due to NoA's policies, or modified to the point it felt like something completely different. I prefer to play the original, unedited/unfiltered version of things instead.

Expense of NES games and consoles in Australia, was just cheaper to buy Japanese carts and import them

Quote from: TheProGamer1991 on July 10, 2016, 11:22:48 am
Famicom Dojo!  8) The First Season, to be more specific.

I second that! Awesome show. I even purchased the dvd to support guys.

Also, the rest of points which got me into famicom:

• my poor soldering skills


• normal 60Hz speed


• design


• affordable costs


• variety of accessories: basic + keyboard, disk system, data recorder, etc.

1. The design and the size of the Famicom (i'm a fan great PC-Engine fan so it helped ;) )
2. The software catalog, all the great titles from the 80's are on it !!
3. The cartridges, these are colorfull and well designed !!

The games are really cheap (With some exceptions)

The regional differences for each game

The special giveway games like Punch Out!! or the quite expensive Famicom US Golf Prize Card , NWC 1990?? That's trash compared to this  :-\ or not...?

The cartridges are much more smaller than the NES ones

No more blinking light

Beautiful artwork

I bought an NES when it first came out in 1985. I was 15 years old.  Friend of mine got a hold of a Japanese video game magazine and we saw all these games we wanted to play that were not available in the States.  We cold called shops in Japan to find someone who spoke English and would ship them to us.  Long story short, we ended up getting lots of games, including a Disk System imported between 1985 - 1989.  in 1989 I got a job in the video games business and worked for small US subsidiaries of Japanese game companies and then later to some US based companies.  I worked on NES games like Wizardry, Faria, Gun-Nac, Might & Magic, Vice: Project Doom, The Jungle Book.  My full games list can be found here: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,1771/

I spent 21 years total in the video games business.  Loved the first ten years, hated the last ten years.  By the time I got out of it I wanted nothing to do with video games anymore.

That being said I always had a thing for retro gaming. I collected 80s arcade machines at one point, and always had a ColecoVision and a Vectrex sitting on my desk wherever I worked.  I got back into retrogaming a couple of years ago and wanted to go back to where I started in the games biz... Nintendo.  I have and always will be a Nintendo fanboy.  It's the only current gen system that I own.  I love to travel to Japan and get crazy amount of Streetpasses.  I even have already pre-ordered the Nintendo Switch.

Been loving getting back into Famicom games again.  I don't actually even have an American NES, just a AV Modded Famicom with a Disk System.

That's my story!  Looking forward to hanging out on these forums!

Wow that's quite a list! I have played many of those games you worked on.

Thanks.  There's a good amount of crap on that list too, so hopefully you avoided some of those!   ;D

I grew up with the NES, of course who didn't, but got into Famicom about a year ago. I had bought a PC Engine with a PCE CD and I love it, but didn't collect for it as I got an everdrive. Then I started seeing games like Takeshi no Chōsenjō and other weird, and cool, looking games. There was also just something atractive about the look of the games and the system. So I bought a cheap Famicom, a handful of games, and had fun. I just ordered a Disk System and a few games, but haven't gotten them in to sink in my teeth yet. But yeah basically I just love Japanese stuff and Nintendo, so that's how I got into Famicom.  :D

What got me into Famicom was Nesticle and playing imports and it all snowballed from there. been tuning drives and writing disks since 2000. lets say my drives read anything and write anything. and are always consistent :) if my disk doesn't work in your drive, it isn't tuned right. :P but the little white FC got me into twins, AV famicom and tons of disk drives. i just got 12 more standalones in. WHATS WRONG WITH ME!?!

Uh... My story might me a little different. I'm 14 right now and in 2013 I found an old Gameboy with batman on eBay. It was cheap and I liked batman. It came pretty broken and didn't work, but it was very cheap and it even said: "may not work". But I still wanted to play that game, so I searched for another affordable Gameboy and found one on Konsolenkost.de I quickly realized, that those old games, were a lot of fun and that the challenge was harder than in most newer games. Then I found this retro gaming store and I've seen an NES from outside, but when I saw, that Gamecube with Gameboy player, I had to buy it. I could finally play sml2 on a big screen. Then I got a lot into gaming history and informed myself a lot. One day I walked past that retro gaming store and went in, to ask how much they want for the NES. And they said, 30 euros. I bought it, and took it home,  when I tried to hook it up I got the flashing light of death, so I returned it and bought a clear blue N64 instead, but just a day later I found an advert, for a cheap NES on eBay, so I bought it, but it was broken as well, but instead of returning it, I tried to repair it and it worked. And from that point on I started collecting. Pong consoles, telegames, computers and consoles. And the last console, I bought was the Family Computer in 2014. I heard about the"Japanese NES" for a while and that it was cheaper. I found a cheap but great AV mod on eBay and obviously got it. I loved playing SMB3 on it and it quickly became my favorite Mario game.  Then I got depressed and suffered from anxiety and tucked all of my consoles away. One year later I got another hobby. It was practical Chemistry. I stopped doing it because I was concerned for my health. And because I can't be without a hobby, I got into terraristics and aquatics ergo insect-and fishkeeping. It is a very great, but exhausting hobby. But a few months ago, I found my Gameboy and started playing so step by step I got every console upstairs again and played again in my free time. I gave my Famicom more attention and want to get more games for it. I now restore my old consoles in my free time.

Quote from: GoodNoodle on April 29, 2017, 12:02:56 pmterraristics

Have you played Abadox yet?

It's a great story. I'm happy to hear people are interested in gaming history. And yeah newer games are often easy, that's my main problem with newer games too.

Quote from: Jedi QuestMaster on April 29, 2017, 07:06:44 pm

Quote from: GoodNoodle on April 29, 2017, 12:02:56 pmterraristics

Have you played Abadox yet?

Nope ,dude but I've seen some screenshots. Is it like Metroid? Buuuuut whatdoes abadox have to do with terraristics??

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Post Merge: May 01, 2017, 03:22:43 am

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Quote from: P on April 30, 2017, 11:30:54 pm
It's a great story. I'm happy to hear people are interested in gaming history. And yeah newer games are often easy, that's my main problem with newer games too.

Thanks for your appreciation.
I think, what really got me into gaming history was when I heard of the Satellaview.
The challenge in games can be a curse as well. When some friends come over, no one wants to play SNES or NES but rather WIIU or PS3, because they find it too hard. Aaaaaaaaaaand I'm also terrible at many games, but they are still fun to me although I nearly broke my Famicom controller when I played Rockman4 :)

They where hard back in the day too, only you had nothing else to play so you happily kept playing the same game over and over even though you couldn't get past the first stage at first. ;D Eventually you got good at it. Of course these games relies on being hard, you would get tired of them if you beat them too fast.

Quote from: GoodNoodle on May 01, 2017, 03:15:35 amBuuuuut whatdoes abadox have to do with terraristics??

Doesn't terraristics deal with feeding reptiles, invertebrates, and giant, human-eating frog aliens? :D Come to think of it, I don't think that Parisitis was related to a frog at all. ???

Sadly, the biggest one is price. I can get famicom mario 1-3 for the price of nes 3.

But there are also many other good reasons to own one. I like the design of both the original famicom and twins. The carts are pretty cute and spiffy. The disk system disks are cool with the Nintendo logo on them.  I can play all kinds of games that never came to the US. and the cartridge slots are less temperamental.

Hello! Decided to register here as this site has been helpful recently!  :)
To be honest, I bought Famicon on a whim. Recently I've bought NTSC SNES so I can access some great titles that we didn't get here in Europe. Probably because of that, eBay granted me £20 coupon for over £40 purchase (I'm not from the UK, but we don't have eBay here in Northern Europe, at least not anymore). I made my decision and bought Famicom. It was not in a perfect condition but it worked and included two games. And it was only about 31 euros after the discount, including shipping.
It didn't include an AC adapter however so I bought a stock AC adapter and carefully followed the instructions over here to make sure my Famicom gets some proper juice. I plugged the console to TV with my NES RF Switch. After some tuning I managed to get somewhat clear picture (as good as RF can provide you) but audio was horrible buzzing sound. Just like the seller described. I tried most of the tricks I managed to find here. Controller II wasn't the issue as problem continued even after unplugging the controller. There was only one thing to try and if that doesn't work, the only option was to AV mod my Famicom. I opened the console and tuned the screws in a RF modulator with a screwdiver. After listening some soothing radio channels I almost lost hope until I finally managed to get clear audio without any interference. Now I can finally enjoy Famicom games without AV modding. Though I may get into it some time in the future. The picture quality sucks but it's still manageable as I don't have a huge TV and it's pretty far away from myself (and RF Switch cord is damn long).
What started as a result of impulse purchase proceeded to realization of how cheap Famicom games are! And how many excellent Famicom exclusive games there are! And of course Famicom looks damn cool!
Too bad language barrier prevents me to enjoy JRPG:s as those are my favorite.  :(

Two years ago I acquired a Famicom A/V system in really nice shape.   ;)  I knew that several games I wanted to try out included ones that had no official NES release.  In particular I wanted to try out Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti (スプラッターハウス わんぱくグラフィティ), Ninja JaJaMaru-kun (忍者じゃじゃ丸くん), and Yōkai Club (妖怪倶楽部).  I really enjoyed those games, so I decided to pick up a few titles that also made it to the NES.  These included Super Mario Bros, Wrecking Crew, and Ghosts'n Goblins (Makaimura). 

After playing these games, and looking up current game prices, I realized that in a lot of instances buying the Famicom version of a game seems to be a lot cheaper than their NES counterparts.  In some instances Famicom game content is even better; sound, graphic, or censorship wise.  The NES will always have a special place in my heart as my childhood game console, but right now I don't own one.

I really love my Famicom A/V.  It is my go to classic Nintendo system now.  I prefer to play the Famicom version of games, and if I encounter a NES only release I have a decent converter that I can utilize to plug it into my Famicom A/V.  I seem to have one of the good consoles, because the sound and video quality is significantly better than what I have experienced with the NES.   8)  I also enjoy the discovery factor with Famicom related material and releases that aren't from my NES memories, but are still imbued with past innovations.   :diskkun: 

Years ago I wanted to replace my PAL collection with NTSC and the choice between JP and US was pretty easy to make. Unaltered (often better) versions in compact form with more appealing artwork, wider selection, better sound, cheaper importing etc... not to forget the microphone!

<3 :redcart: <3

To be honest, Japanese Super Mario Bros 2 back in the year 1998 when Mario Deluxe came out for the GBC. Wanted more info about the original and that led me to the Famicom.

I first knew about it when I had a Famiclone called the Power Joy II, that I had for Christmas in 2001 and I remember that it came with its own cartridge of these x-in-1 games, and one of them was Twin Bee which I remembered very clearly, and was a lot of fun. However, I didn't really get into it until two years later where I got an odd 108-in-1 cart for the GBA, where several NES games were squished into it and do remember playing some classics on it, from Bomberman to Ice Climber.

And, the rest is history. Long live the Famicom :)

Well, I think I knew about the Famicom for a while, but once I started watching Vinesauce Joel do his NES/Famicom Madness and bootleg streams, it made me so much more aware of how much was kept locked up in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Soon enough, I saw just how good those games were. And through a bit more digging, I saw how many stupidly expensive NES games were affordable on the Famicom. At that point, it just snowballed and now I'm REALLY hoping to get one in the near future.

Gotta love that wacky Famicom.

I like the carts, the art and the console. It's smaller than our PAL monster and Famicom has some nice exclusive titles, too.
Also being cheaper than PAL, yep.

I was a SNES then NES person then got obsessed about picture quality and in France we only had the pseudo-AV-OUT version of the NES.

So I researched way to get a better picture for the NES games and saw that a Twin Famicom would be good for this.

The Twin being a little bulky, I started to research more and decided to buy a Famicom so I could enjoy the games on the original hardware they were intended to run on.

Happened that when I saw it I completely fell in love with the design. It's small, elegant, well-thought, much better than the VCR-style NES we have (never had top-loaders in Europe). Now I buy them boxed when I find them (nakameshi's store on eBay is neat for that), tested or untested. I try to restore their plastic to its nice original color and keep or sell them to video game addicts.

I'm crazy with the elegance of the Famicom.

An N64 style Chinese Famiclone that was up for grabs at my local Cash Converters for £12.  It came with the lightgun, two controllers and an 84-in-1 cart with mostly old school arcade fare like Dig Dug and Galaga.  My favourite games on the cart are Route 16: Turbo, Arkanoid and Devil World.

I've since added several other multi-carts and a few individual games (Mario Bros, Route 16, Baseball Stars and a Chinese repro of Splatterhouse (the latter two were only recently ordered and are still on their way)).  The next thing on my hit list is an Everdrive N8.  I don't know for sure if my Famiclone will run it but it's handled everything I've thrown at it so far (apart from being a bit crash prone with NES games through an adapter).

I want to get an NTSC console at some point so I can run the games properly but I'm not really sure how to go about it.  The SNES was so much easier in that regard; £20 Super Famicom, old Mega Drive PSU I had lying around, csync RGB-Scart cable, job done. 

I JUST got into the Famicom.
I'm a hands on kinda guy, and love to tinker with electronics (solder/repair/improve). I also watch Jontron often and when I saw this, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6MIlJYiJUs I decided it was time to give the Family computer a try.
I found both a Non-Working/ Junk / Untested Famicom and Famicom Disk Drive (with the RAM adapter) on ebay and purchased them. I'm still waiting on them to arrive, but I'm already planning the repairs and restores for them. I made sure both were in a kinda yellow or dirty condition with minor (if any) cracks or blemishes. I wanted something I could restore to a like new state the best I could, retrobrite, maybe the vinyl dye, replacing capacitors, belts, modding the Famicom with a 3.5mm AV out port (mostly because I don't have any TV that supports RF/Coaxial any more).
Years ago, I used to make game reproductions for both myself, and in a few batches for sale, I'm already planning a few game reproductions to make for the Famicom once it arrives (Famicom games with english patches).

I'm kinda excited. So right now, this is the start of me getting into Famicom. I'll post more as I get more deep into it!
Wooo!!
~John

Basically arcade conversions we did not get here in the US (Galaxian and Space Invaders for example) fan translations and the Retron 5.  I currently collect NES arcade conversions and wanted to branch out in to titles that never left Japan, thusly my Famicom collection was born.  My Retron 5 also opened a lot of doors to exclusive Famicom games with its ability to use fan translations, which is awesome.

Reading Nintendo Power.  They always had an Import gaming section.

The fact that I couldn't play those games at the time made me want to play them more as I got older.

I love the NES and when I was in highschool I took Japanese language class for 3 years. I was able to go on the senior year trip to Japan. This was back in 2003 and when I was in Japan I went into KB Toys. I saw a brand new AV Famicom in the case so I bought it. I thought at the time that Nintendo must have done some anniversary release or something but it wasn't until years later I learned Nintendo sold the Famicom up until 2003.

That made me happy that I got to buy a Famicom during its official production lifetime.

I think for me, it was the allure of owning a console that not that many people own in the UK but it also helped that it looks badass  ;D

My memories of it are fuzzy, but I got into the Famicom through a YouTube series called Famicom Dojo. (https://www.youtube.com/user/FamicomDojo)

Quote from: boye on January 20, 2019, 12:09:02 pm
My memories of it are fuzzy, but I got into the Famicom through a YouTube series called Famicom Dojo. (https://www.youtube.com/user/FamicomDojo)

Same here! I'm still watching that show to this day! It's cheesy but I like it  :)

My wife had a famicom and really fond memories of it from the 80's, we got one last year with AV modification and have been collecting fun games ever since, also got a disk system and some games for that(what a wonderful little device, so tactile and mechanical, love it!), I grew up with Atari and ZX spectrum later Amiga in the UK in the 80's so this was a whole new world for me and a whole lot of fun :)

I had always thought that the Super Famicom looked much, much better than the Super Nintendo. But then, I decided that putting an NES next to a Super Famicom wouldn't be exactly right, even though personally I thought the NES looked better. One day, I stumbled over a Youtube video about how Famicom games had better BGMs than NES games(Castlevania III), and then I started to get interested in Famicoms. I began to find out that it actually had different accessories that make a Famicom an actual "Family Computer". With the NES being simply a "video game console", I began to realize how "technologically advanced" the Famicom was compared to the NES, even though they were basically the same thing in the inside. Then, I started to think that the Famicom actually looked better than the NES!  While the NES is just a big gray box, the Famicom was a colorful little toy(in a good way). Also, NES cartridges are unnecessarily enormous, making it harder to collect it in large quantities. Famicom carts are acceptable in size and most importantly, they come in a variety of colors, making it more, you know, nice. A few days ago, I was browsing through a flea market, when I found a Famicom and a Gamecube sitting next to each other. Ignoring the Gamecube, I handed the guy 15 bucks for the Famicom and walked home. Well, I still don't know whether it works, thanks to a 100V adapter and a topless RF Switchbox, but still, it was a nice old piece of electronics, and I think it will great next to my Super Famicom(My Super Famicom is in the US and I currently am in Korea)!  Well, thanks to Nintendo for not making a Disk System for the NES, I now am in love with the Famicom!

QuoteI had always thought that the Super Famicom looked much, much better than the Super Nintendo. But then, I decided that putting an NES next to a Super Famicom wouldn't be exactly right,

I don't know what you are talking about, SFC and SNES looks identical to me besides the logo. ;)
I always used to have my SNES next to my NES.

Quote from: P on July 25, 2019, 02:15:01 am

QuoteI had always thought that the Super Famicom looked much, much better than the Super Nintendo. But then, I decided that putting an NES next to a Super Famicom wouldn't be exactly right,

I don't know what you are talking about, SFC and SNES looks identical to me besides the logo. ;)
I always used to have my SNES next to my NES.

Spoiler

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Nintendo-Super-Famicom-Set-FL.jpg)
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Wikipedia_SNES_PAL.jpg)

[close]

The american version of the snes looks very different from the pal snes and the sfc. It's the purple one: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Nintendo_Entertainment_System

I don't remember exactly when I first heard about the Famicom, but I guess it either have had to been from Nintendo Power magazines (the Scandinavian one we had here) or maybe when they released the NES / Famicom GBA SP models. Because I remember wanting the famicom edition so badly, but realized it was impossible hence it never got released in Europe  ???
After that I probably learned a lot because I emulated MOTHER (earthbound zero) and some other games that weren't available here.  :-[

And now - 16 or 17 years later - I FINALLY got my own real Famicom!  :D

Quote from: NintendoKing on January 28, 2010, 10:11:08 am
It was 2004, I discovered Famicom by researching on the internet for NES which led me to a Japanese version called the Family Computer... my interest grew.

Then in 2005, I got on eBay and bought 2 games, Argus and Fudou Myououden; and a original Famicom which I couldn't figure out how to use as I wasn't aware of needing to run it on channel 95.

I kept trying to get it to work, and was sad; so I got a Gametech Neo-Fami which in the end introduced me to the first Famicom game play.

Then around a year later the Gametech Neo-Fami broke down, so I boxed my 2 games and the original Famicom up and placed them in my closet. And tossed the Neo-Fami in the trash.

Then around January 2008, I stumbled on this site... then lurked awhile and learned of channel 95; once my Famicom worked I got excited again and in March I joined the site and learned new things and became more interested in Famicom again.

----------------------------------------
Continued:

I later bought a Hudson Expansion port controller, and restarted buying games again.

Then later 2009, I accidentally plugged one of my NES power adapters into my Famicom and blew it; I took it apart and saved certain parts and bought a second Famicom for use.

Then later in 2010, I decided to upgrade and ended up buying an AV Famicom, at that moment I retired my second original Famicom then eventually gave it to a friend.

2015: I upgraded again to a heavily modified original Famicom with AV ports, power LED and front based Controller holes. But I will be keeping my AV Famicom as the look cool next to each other. ;)

Yes, I am the same person as NintendoKing (The Uninvited Gremlin).

Well, I was into retrogaming nearly my entire life. I was interested in Atari stuff when I was a wee lad. I found out about the NES and TG16 early on, but never had any. Fast forward to 11 years old, I decided to actually collect again. I got mostly American stuff. I had an NES with a Famicom converter since I was planning on getting import games, not much Famistuff to be seen by that time. There was a gaming convention in town where I saw Famicom games on sale, and I decided why not? I got a copy of FF2 (not sure why I bought it, I could've bought Gradius 2 at that time but didn't  :'() and then a couple months later I got a Famicom proper and I still have it to this day  :D

Über expensive? Super Famicom is one of the cheapest systems you can get. Even more so nowdays when retro games are cheap.

What got me into Famicom?

Easy...

Break dancing identical twins from the Philippines.

The NES did. I'm an insane used to be considered an insane NES collector (as the goobers at NintendoAge made me look sane, quite a feat) and after I finished NES, I branched out to other systems like Genesis, and more specifically really anything I could my hands on. Years later, my wife and I purged over half of our collection and sold a lot of that nonsense, leaving what really mattered, particularly NES. I had always had a small Famicom collection (30-40 games), then I noticed that shipping had seemingly come down from when I was NES collecting and prices were still dirt cheap for imports. So, Famicom collecting it was. I'm over 500 carts and 100 disks and man, it's like rediscovering the NES all over again. Criminal how many good, great or even just average games we didn't get. I just wish I signed up here a decade ago.

I had a NES as a kid in 1989/1990. Remember that Im in Germany and the NES / Famicom was not as strong in Europe as it was in the US & Japan. I read a lot of German video game magazines and was always interested when they wrote about an import game on the Famicom that we did not get. And so I started collecting with the main focus on the Famicom (NES only when the game was not released in Japan or is different from the Japanese release). I will post my collection here shortly in the "Show your stash" thread.

The games are SO much cheaper then the NES. Also there's basically no import costs since I live in Australia, meaning I can pick up most famicom games from $5-$20. So yeah really just the cost.

So it all began as per usual in 1990s Poland - around 1995 or so parents bought us a famiclone, the famous "Pegasus", bundled with the equally famous 168 in 1 multicart, I remember also having one of those random "God-knows-how-many-games-in-1" multicarts. The first games I've ever played were Nuts & Milk, Duck Hunt and F-1 Race. Aside from me and my siblings, our parents also enjoyed playing games, my mom loved Lode Runner and Tengen Tetris especially. But by the end of 1999 we've ditched Pegasus in favor of a PC, much like everybody else did at the time. I don't really remember what happened to the console, did we give it to someone or just simply disposed in trash after it suffered a failure? I really don't know, but I remember I was nostalgic for these games. Without any knowledge of emulation, I thought I will never get to play them again...

Come 2005, when I came across a website called Emu-Russia (RIP). This is where I learned about emulation which allowed me to experience the games of yesteryear once again without the need of buying dedicated hardware and cartridges. I've learned a lot about games never seen before by me such as the Megaman and Castlevania series or the other Super Mario games. I was also surprised to learn that Pegasus wasn't a genuine console at all. For some time I played on the emulator more often than dedicated PC games, mostly because our PC was hopelessly outdated at the time and thus we couldn't afford ourselves a new one (to play the most recent releases, obviously). After buying a new rig in 2008 my will to play old 8-bit games diminished once again, though I still played Contra or Super Mario Bros from time to time. At that point I was certain that I played pretty much everything on the system...

Fast forward to 2013, another website (Hardcore Gaming 101) sparked my interest in oldies again. And boy, how I was wrong - all the games for NES/Famicom I played so far are just a fraction of its vast library. I also started emulating other consoles, mostly 16-bit systems. One day in 2017 I was listening to various NES/Famicom soundtracks uploaded by grad1u52 on YouTube and this particular one (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2U164uUAbc) caught my attention and I wanted to know more about the game, which eventually led to me writing a review (http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/layla/) for HG101. That was the moment when I knew I'm gonna return to the 8-bit Nintendo for good. In the same year I attented a NES/Famicom fan convention. This event made me think that emulation is not enough and half a year later the king of classic electronic entertainment was back at my home, this time in its original incarnation.

I'm actually just jumping into the Famicom this month, mostly because of looks, the Disk System, and just because it's cool to have  :D

But what actually started my interest in the Famicom, after I already had an NES and was fine with it, was how cool the games for the FDS looked. Having the Nintendo logo actually pressed INTO the plastic was just really neat, and that led me to find a great deal on an FDS with a Famicom from Japan, so I started looking for nice games to import(which will probably start me learning Japanese-rest my weary soul :'()

...I can't wait for that thing to arrive so I can clean it. It's just too nice to see it wiped up. I don't have a problem you have a problem.

The Famicom commercials on Youtube. Especially the videos Satoshi Matrix posted. Famicom commercials are literally heroin in terms of pleasure and addictiveness but they don't kill you. It's such an adreneline rush to hear the announcer say T  A  N  O  S  H  I  I  K  A  S  E  T  T  O  J  O  U  H  O  U and while marveling at the Japanese 80's aethestics.

Here in Russia we had unlicensed but very popular famiclone called Dendy. Majority of games were pirated Famicom-like cartridges manufactured in Asia.
Multicards contained Nuts & Milk, Popeye, Japanese Ice Climbers (one with seals), Dig Dug, Antarctic Adventure, Circus Charlie, Wild Gunman. I also do remember playing Hi no Tori and trying to play a Saint Seiya game.
Please don't get the impression that some pesky Russky tries to take a dump on your childhood but EU/US NES was kinda underwhelming. It looked like a tombstone but was all over the internet in mid-2000s, while my favorite games like Adventure Island 4 (Takahashi meijin no bouken jima 4) and Ganbare Goemon were left in obscurity.
Thanks to emulation I discovered some new Famicom stuff like Mother, Megami Tensei, Sweet Home, Nekketsu series. Early games like Challenger and Konami's Gorilla Fist Massacre Game (King Kong 2).
And I'm probably missing a lot.

Here's some points that I like about Famicom the most:

- Aside nondetachable controllers - much more interesting hardware and accessories
- Japanese obscurities and overall bigger library of games
- "Non-castrated" versions of games like Zelda 2, Contra, Akumajouvania 3
- DISK SYSTEM ;D
- Looks and aesthetics of the system

Basically I love video game music, which made me get into Famicom collecting. The expansion audio and vast library of games never seen western releases.  :diskkun:  :bub:

I also made a video showing off how I got into Famicom collecting and I show off my favourite loose famicom carts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXpmcRZRA64

Quote from: Elrinth on November 09, 2020, 12:28:37 amI also made a video showing off how I got into Famicom collecting and I show off my favourite loose famicom carts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXpmcRZRA64 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXpmcRZRA64)

I love your King Kong II description: "An okay, top-down, bash the shit out of the military game" ;D

Quote from: Elrinth on November 09, 2020, 12:28:37 amBasically I love video game music, which made me get into Famicom collecting. The expansion audio and vast library of games never seen western releases.  :diskkun:  :bub:

I also made a video showing off how I got into Famicom collecting and I show off my favourite loose famicom carts:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXpmcRZRA64

i love the way you compared the two castlevania 3 versions.

hehe thanks for the kind words :)

I was always interested in gaming as a whole and the Famicom looked so broad in terms of game types/genres but I'm now back into it as I'm old and I'm reliving what I couldnt have. As child there was no chance because as a family, we couldnt afford gaming/consoles and that continued (because I left home many years ago and so couldnt ask for consoles as presents) until just recently (4 years ago), when I got a proper job and saved some cash!

Two days ago, I bought a Famicom on ebay and this site has helped me no end to understand what I'm about to get myself into! So thanks for that for smart/complicated sorts! Now I'm considering my options to get it to work in the UK and PAL and I'm pretty sure the £5 CRT I bought isn't going to cut it, so I need to consider my options (AV mod, NTSC VCR).
Expect stupid questions. Apologies in advance.

The aesthetic of it. I always found the NES a little boring, looks wise, but as soon as I saw the famicom I fell in love

Emulation for me and looking for RPG games. I always liked the look of Famicom RPG's and I'm a big fan of English translations of Famicom games. RPG's led me to liking other Famicom games and I bought my first Famicom console with a multi cart online a few years ago and I've been buying them ever since.

Growing up, my dad dealt in arcade cabinets and vending, and we really only got new things once they were old to everyone else, so that pretty much laid the ground work for my love of retro gaming.

I collect a little bit of everything, but I especially love the weird stuff. Bootlegs, Homebrew, and games that never made it to the US all particularly interest me, so my favorite systems to collect for tend to be the NES and SNES, which inevitably led me to the Famicom and Super Famicom. :D

I also attend college for programming and game design, so the idea that I can build a game and play it on a physical console is like a dream to me.

I was intrigued by the Famicom ever since I read the DQ3 launch article in NP all those years ago. It just had a certain air of mystery about it, games I knew and loved on nes were slightly different on famicom, sounds in Metroid and Zelda, CV3, little things that added up to a similar but new experience in 8 bit gaming.

As I mentioned in my introductory post, Nintendo have been my chief favourites when it comes to home gaming: as is demonstrated by the ownership of a SNES, N64, Gamecube, Wii and Wii-U. I've always enjoyed NES titles and there's a few in particular that I've played via emulation. Speaking of which, I have a stack of NES/Famicom VC games on my PAL Wii but some of the Famicom and NTSC NES ones don't work, despite endless fiddling with Homebrew loaders.

Lately I've been eager to check out previously unexplored machines and the AV Famicom fit the bill - especially given its Japan only status, which appeals to my interest in anything that's "alternative" and plus, I'll get to play the games that wouldn't work on my Wii. :)

What got me into Famicoms where:
-Famicom Disk System
-Oddity in the U.S.
-Other Peripherals
-Games
And that is just to name a few. And now i own two working Famicoms!

What got me into Famicom ?

The design (never liked the NES look, original one or Toploader), the superior version of games (expansion sound and uncensored), the more advantageous Famicom to NES conversion, and the only all-in-one model which exists, the Twin Famicom.

My first console was an NES, which I received in 1989. Back then, it was super difficult to import this stuff from Japan, and there were so many games I read about in the many game magazines that I read that just looked amazing. I couldn't get my hands on them and was always frustrated. I recently found myself with a bunch of free time and started collecting the games and consoles I either had as a kid or always wanted but couldn't talk my parents into getting for me back in the early 90's. Once it dawned on me over the last week that the japanese consoles were pretty readily available, I went on the hung for a famicom. I luckily found one, complete in box and in fantastic shape. Also luckily, the price hasn't skyrocketed yet so I am so happy to say I now own one.

passion for 8bit era! games were just simple and well made, with efficient level design, and famicom have so many games in that way, nintendo has always been careful to little details, and many studio at time put the same exigencies (capcom and konami for instance) in their productions. besides, famicom games are often better than their nes equivalent.

What got me to famicom well that´s a good question:
When i was like 16 years old i bought my NES obyously second handle and i wanted to learn more about the NES and to my surprise when i was Researching i discovered the famicom the japanese NES, the additional sound chips the disk System, ETC. I get obsess to get the famicom but i didn´t want to imported. and On that day i swear to one day find an original famicom in my country When i was 21 years i found My oportunitty to buy one with one original game Soccer i bought and when it arrive i was blown away because i got in my hands my original Famicom.

P.S: Originally i was going to buy someday a Disk System but when my famicom arrived i kind a change my mind so i choose to in the future buy an Everydrive N8 pro.

When I was growing up in the late 2000s my dad gave me his childhood NES which got me into retro gaming as a whole, but it wouldn't be until recently that I got into Famicom and import gaming as a whole. I knew about the Famicom since the 2010s but I wouldn't get my first few games until 2016ish where I got King's Knight and Ninja Hattori-kun at a local game store. I didn't have an actual Famicom console at the time so I had to buy an adapter and play on an after market console to play these games. About a year later I bought a Famicom console on eBay for $20 but I wouldn't really go crazy on getting more games until 2020 when video game prices started going crazy and local game stores started upping their prices. I wanted to find a way to continue buying games for cheap, so I started using a proxy service to import various games and consoles from Japan, including a lot of Famicom games. Famicom collecting has pretty much made me obsessed with the system especially since documentation on the Famicom is sparse compared to the NES on the English side of the internet. Eventually I do want to collect every single Famicom cartridge one day but that'll probably never happen considering the rarity and prices for the harder to find games.

Mine is pretty strange one.

I just liked the design of it and the way the controllers sat at the side of the console.

I had grown up with an NES, but I never even considered buying a Famicom or Famicom games until after getting a RetroN 5 in 2014. I worked in a mom 'n pop game store at the time and the owner had ordered a few to sell. As odd as it may sound, I decided I wanted to get a Famicom cartridge simply so that I'd have something that used every input available on the console. I wasn't really interested in anything I hadn't played before or that was text heavy since I couldn't read Japanese, so I went with the game series that hooked me into video games from the start: The Legend of Zelda. :link:

At the time, I had no idea that the cartridge was just a "backport" of the NES release back into Japanese, and thought this was the "original" release format of the game. I played the game through once, noticed that the Pols Voices were no longer weak to arrows and that I needed the microphone to kill them faster, passed on playing the 2nd Quest like I usually did, and that was that.  :diskkun:

Skipping ahead to 2019, I had recently watched "Dad of Light" on Netflix; exposition aside, the first episode depicts a father and his young son walking by a store window in the 80's and seeing a Nintendo Family Computer on display, so they decide to buy one and the game they pick is Final Fantasy III. I had originally played FF3 when it was finally localized in English on the Nintendo DS and loved it, and somehow seeing them set that Famicom on the floor in front of their tv with the little cassette-sized game sticking out of it sparked an interest in me.  :fire: 

That same year I attended what would be my last anime/video game convention before the pandemic hit, and in the vendor hall one stall was selling an assortment of Famicom games. As I looked through without any specific game in mind, I saw Final Fantasy III.  :o  I immediately bought it, and now here I sit with an a/v modded original Famicom, a stack of cartridges, a Famicom disk system, a small selection of disks, and an incomplete but far larger grasp of Japanese (basically just being able to type Hiragana and Katakana into Google Translate and a few words here and there) than I had only 4 some odd years ago.  8)

It's also lead me into soldering, which I'll confess also lead down the dark road of destroying a few (mostly obscure) games to make English repro NES carts of Final Fantasy 2 and 3 among others.  :(  I've since given the practice up, but it has also allowed me to make some fantastic mods and repairs I never thought possible before across both Nintendo and Sega hardware; I recently replaced the belt in my FDS and I'm currently working on modifying it to allow it to overwrite disks so I can repair two disks I purchased that turned out not to have the games they were supposed to on them (one disk was for a 2-sided game that had another game written over side A, making Side B useless, the other is Zelda 2 but with Zelda 1 written over it). It would also give me peace of mind if I get any corrupted disks in the future or if something goes wrong with one I already have if re-writing the disk is a tool in my kit!  ;D

It's been a wild ride so far, and I don't see an end to it just yet!   :) :redcart:

How I got into collecting famicom is a pretty short story actually.
I started when I found Famicom world 15 years ago and bought a famicom and 4 games.
I've been collecting every since. In that 15 year time I have build up a pretty good collection. :) 

That's pretty much it.   

I'm from Germany. I got a NES at christmas in 1990. The games I remember I had in the 2 year span that I had the NES were: Probotector 1 & 2 (Contra & Super C), Life Force, Super Mario Bros. 1 & 3, Castlevania 1 & 3, Track & Field 2, Marble Madness, Mega Man 2, 3 & 4, Turtles 2 - The Arcade Game and Tetris.
Then the day came in 1992 = I wanted the Super Nintendo :) But that meant I had to sell my NES console & games because my parents / grandparents allowed me just one console.
So I sold my NES & games in 1992 :(
In 1996 when I started working and earning money I went to the fleamarket every weekend and bought stacks of NES games up until 2001/2002 = I had about 200 loose NES games (+ I collected for 40 other consoles as well ;) ) at this point but due to money shortcomings I had to sell my entire console / game collection in 2002 :(
Fast forward to 2007 when I discovered Yahoo Auctions Japan = I rememberred my NES games and started looking for those titles on Yahoo = the first 2 CIB Famicom games I won at auction were Super C and Bucky O Hare for 3000 Yen each = this was the test buys because I had never used Yahoo Auctions before = so I waited 3 weeks and the 2 games arrived in perfect condition. I was blown away because you could the games so cheap back then and the Famicom carts just looked way nicer than the NES games. Thats what started the Famicom collection. I'm up to 709 CIB Famicom games now plus multiple OG Famicoms, AV Famicoms and Twin Famicoms and at least one of each model is RGB modded.

Quote from: dingsbums on June 25, 2023, 02:52:53 amthe first 2 CIB Famicom games I won at auction were Super C and Bucky O Hare for 3000 Yen each

Bucky O'Hare was one of those NES games I filed under PROBABLY WILL NEVER OWN because it's so expensive, but I didn't think much of tracking down the FC version. Looking at it now, they both seem to be in about the same price range: $120-$180. ??? Maybe inflation makes this seem cheaper now? I'm adding this to my list now. :)

Quote from: dingsbums on June 25, 2023, 02:52:53 amI was blown away because you could the games so cheap back then

Some time ago I was trying to buy NES Wario's Woods CIB sealed, because I've always wanted to experience opening a brand new NES game. Wario's Woods was still going for around $40-60 at that time, but I either kept getting outbid or people would snatch these up before I could. :'(

Quote from: dingsbums on June 25, 2023, 02:52:53 amFamicom carts just looked way nicer than the NES games.

They also take up less space. :redcart:

Playing the American NES and learning about the NES' Japanese counterpart, the Famicom was what got me into the Famicom, itself.  Whenever I vacationed in India, there was a shop which housed a Famiclone in an arcade cabinet.

I am a Japanese person who has lived in Japan for a while before moving to the US, so I naturally played Japanese consoles. One day, I found HUNDREDS of Famicom games in my grandparents' house, but I couldn't play it because connecting a Famicom just seemed impossible. Recently, I purchased a bootleg Famiclone (technically legal because the Famicom's patent is dead), which let me play all the Famicom games. Eventually, I started purchasing Famicom and other retro video games (GBC,GBA,SFC,N64 and more).



edit: got a Twin Famicom :)

I don't remember how I found out about it, but sometime between 2006 and 2008, I found out about the japanese line of "Classic NES" game ports for the Gameboy Advance, known as the "Famicom Mini" series.
Prior to this, I grew up on SNES in the 90s, and obviously I had played Super Mario All-Stars, so, the idea of being able to play the original version of Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, was interesting and exciting to me. I ordered the GBA port from a seller on eBay, and that was about it, for a while.

I'm sure there were some other influences, like watching some Youtube videos / AVGN or something like that. It took me a while to finally get around to buying some original hardware, mainly because I was preoccupied with WoW from 2008 until around 2021 or so.

Downloading an NES emulator with a bunch of games a long time ago introduced me to the Famicom.  Long story short I played Crisis Force and loved it. I did some online searches to try to find it which I did but was shocked when a small white and red console showed up in an image. A few decades later, and after lots of research, I own the system, disk drive, and over 40 games.