A full-fledged co-op platformer for your NES. · By
I actually would recommend puNES instead of Nestopia since Nestopia has significant accuracy issues such as several APU and CPU functionalities and MMC3 mapper issues. I've found puNES to be the most accurate standalone NES emulator around. There's also multi-system emulators like BizHawk but they may be a bit confusing to newcomers.
For those who are tech-inclined; stick RetroPie on a Raspberry Pi and gift it to fellow gamers this holiday season. Much cheaper than an NES/SNES classic ;)
My primary issue with the AVS system is that it is a front-loader. Anyone who knows retro gaming knows that top-loading is the most long-lasting and easy method of playing NES games. Get the NESv2 system (top loader version) like James Rolfe has shown in his AVGN videos. He plays NES games to review them and even he doesn't want to mess with front loaders anymore. ;)
The issue with front loaders has to do with the way the pins will 'bend' and 'warp' over time due to gravity and wear/tear and how some carts were created back in the day. The Famicom was a top-loader but the NES in US/EU regions was a front-loader for some reason. I guess they wanted to emulate the 'VCR' style front-loading system but didn't take into account how VCRs had a lot of internal moving parts to load/unload the VCR cassette tape.
We've moved on from the 80s/90s so top-loading NES clones are the way to go.
Gravity is still going to be a thing. Even if it is a 'better' connector, the fact is that a top-loading system for cartridge-based consoles requires less maintenance and is far less prone to human/user error in insertion/removal.
And again as I said, why bother with the AVS when you can get a modded NES Top-Loader console for a similar/lower price?
Your itchio profile seemed empty, otherwise I would take what you said more seriously. If you had some kind of presence outside of the forums here that I could see, then I might know where you are coming from.
Daedalus, can you explain how gravity is an issue for a front loader? Because as NESHomebrew stated, the AVS dosen't have the same design flaw as the original NES. namely; the "lock-down" lever mechanism, which was the real culprit in the front loader's issues.
That's also why the Blinking Light Win is a good product for fans of the NES
The 'Blinking Light' issue was caused by a faulty/incomplete connection or otherwise a technical issue with the NES not being able to authenticate the lockout chip mechanism. If the chip is not present (or removed) from the console then the blinking light issue doesn't happen.
Cleaning and maintenance of retro consoles is important. Doing so for a top-loader is significantly easier to do than for a front-loader. And as I already stated the original Famicom was a top-loader and the NESv2 was also a toploader later in the console's lifespan. Nintendo themselves admitted that the front-loader design is not necessary.
If someone wants it for nostalgia? Sure ok. But I get my nostalgia from the games rather than the mechanism by which they were loaded into the console.
The NESv2 can be modded cheaply (or even come modded) for a lower cost than what the AVS thing is selling for. There are also many other clone consoles available that do the job better/cheaper. Or just grab a raspberry pi, put it inside the shell of an NES classic, stick RetroPie on there and away you go :P
As a proud original gen1 'grey box' NES owner who played the hell out of dozens of popular and unpopular games nearly every weekend for years during my youth, I have found absolutely zero discernible differences between the audiovisual experience playing on original NES versus playing in an emulator like puNES. I'm a HUGE HUGE stickler for the audio part especially and it works flawlessly on everything thrown at it.
The NES and SNES classics are emulators. That's all there is to it. I don't doubt that Nintendo very liberally used the information provided by the open-source retrogaming emulation community to make their emulators. That being said though it is great to spread the love of gaming to as many people as possible and especially to the newer younger generation who didn't grow up with them. It is difficult to do that if one has to hunt down cartridges that are often significantly-inflated in prices.
With an emulator you can also play other-region games and prototype games without having to take out a 2nd mortgage to pay for it all.
