Nintendo Entertainment System: NES Classic Edition

This is definitely worth it. They finally made a retro bundle that includes (most of) the right games, and it's now finally widely available at it's intended price. Control is perfect, imho. It seems to respond exactly the way I remember the same games playing, and I played most (not all) of them originally quite a bit, as I'm sure most of you did. Mega Man II in particular I thought was a great test of controller response, and it felt great. Not sure why there are negative reviews commenting on control or appearance of the games - it seems very solid, and I love the square pixel perfect mode. The game save mechanism is also pretty good. At any time during any game, you can press the 'reset' button on the base system to return to the home menu. At that point, there will be a little floating square in the bottom left that represents the temp save point of the game you were just in. You can either go back to it and continue playing, or, press down and it will give you the option of permanently saving that as a game save to one of the four save slots for each game. You can either fill an empty one, or replace a previous save. That is, each game can have four separate saves of it's own, not just four total for the system. Some notable games that is doesn't have, sadly, are: Mega Man III, Dragon Warrior III or IV, Tetris, Blaster Master, Castlevania III, Contra. Before you search for a second controller in store or online, if you have any controllers that plugged into your Wii-motes, those should work on this system. Nintendo's site for this system has a page that lists compatible controllers - take a look, there are several. If you have a box of Nintendo stuff, chances are you have one. Yes, the cord for the controller is extremely short - I thought this only added to the nostalgic part of sitting in front of the TV as a little kid for hours. Of course it's not a long term way to play - there are many inexpensive extensions available. My advice on this would be to get over it, get an extension, or get a wireless controller. Just keep in mind how many stock cords come with things these days that you immediately discard for something custom you buy anyway. The sticking point made out of the cord length by some negative reviews is laughable. Lastly - some people will mention roms/emulators and making a better version of all this with a RaspberryPi or similar. Yeah, you can do that - but I'd first ask yourself how much time you're really going to put into these games. There's plenty on here, and it has several good games. My point here is, don't let the "Can do much better with an R-Pi setup with hundreds of NES/SNES/N64 instead of just 30 NES" reviews and comments mislead you into thinking this is some kind of ripoff. This NES classic is a great value with zero setup time (for comparison, it's the equivalent of a new PS4/Xbox game today, and I'd say the hours of entertainment are about equal or more to one of the better games on those systems). It's not a wrong move by any means. R-Pi is a different option for people with different needs. I have a NES classic and I'll probably still make the R-Pi thing. Show less

I was born in the 80's so I lived and grew up through the "golden" generation of video games. I grew up playing Atari 2600, 5200, numerous pong consoles, and even the game & watch games. (which I still have a couple). So, when the NES first released in the US, I was one of the lucky ones that got one, and I cannot even begin to tell you how many nights I stayed up playing the Mario/Duck Hunt game set. I kept my original NES all the way until 2001 when it finally died.So, when they announced this my excitement went through the roof, I couldn't fathom a re-release of the NES, in a mini form factor, with no need to have cartridges, so gone was the need to have to blow in them to get it to work. Now its all built in to the NES itself!!!!!First, lets talk about the console itself, it has one micro USB power port, an HDMI port and two controller ports on the front of the console itself, not the NES controller ports however, (so diggin out your old controllers from your closet or basement won't work) these are WII type ports, but do not worry they seemed to have kept the original controller design. The controller is responsive and well, as you remember from back then, it is perfect. The console, is a "mini" so it will literally fit into the palm of your hand, with its size and ease of hooking it up, it makes it very easy to take with you places.Second, the user interface. The UI is very simple in design, you scroll through the menu to select which classic game you want to play, and your off to the races. The games are all just as they were back then, only change is a small update to the quality of the graphics, and save states. Save states makes playing some of these really old games a breeze. Instead of having to start the levels over and over again when you are at a really tough spot, use the save state feature, and keep reloading from that one spot and go for the gold!Third, the nostalgia. The nostalgia factor is high here, when you were a child of the 70's or 80's you remember these games, and it makes you kind of feel like a kid again. Staying up late, sitting cross legged with your friends in front of your 400 pound tube TV.

Bought this for my husband when it re-launched (he's not a gamer, I am). The most recent console he's played on is the original NES (which he actually still has -- this one is adorable! It's a baby NES!), so this seemed like a good present.And it's awesome! But you knew that.Software: It has 30 pre-installed games, plus a newfangled save function that lets you basically suspend the game at any point (which is amazing, since many of these games have no save options at all). You can make up to four saves for each game, and the games that DO have save functions (e.g. Zelda's profiles) do allow you to save within the games as well. Graphics look good and games are as playable as they ever were.Hardware: Um...it does have some issues. It comes with ONE controller (though it supports two), an HDMI cable, a micro-USB cord, and a power adapter. The micro-USB power adapter situation is nice, but the micro-USB cord is your standard 3-foot cord. The controller's cord, as others have noted, is laughably short -- just over 30", about 2.5 feet, so literally not even as long as a standard micro-USB/lightning cable. If you don't like sitting two feet away from your TV, YOU WILL NEED a controller extension cord. I purchased two cheap third-party extension cords and a second controller for something like $15 shipped on Ebay; I believe Nintendo also sells the controllers for $10. Of course, the extension cords are like 10 feet long, so now we have way too much cord.