CLASSIC GAMES REVISITED - FC Mobile (Portable NES Clone) Review

[unibrow9]

25$@ GAME BUZZ

[LuwiigiMaster]

The Sound quality would be like that because it's using a custom NES soundboard, as my cousins had a Famiclone and made the sounds play EXACTLY like that. My Famiclone played, surprisingly, properly. And both of them were Euro/Jap Super NES lookalikes, with mine called the "Super Megason IV".

[didogazeto]

@kilala435 and whete to plug it???

[TheEscapedBalloon]

How is the second version?

[darkraitrainer590]

Funny that Nintendos handhelds never had good competition,minus the gameboy and the DS.

[chocobunneh]

Marry-o Brothers!

[timm55]

How much did it cost?

[SHIPP0DEMONS]

Theres one other problem you didnt mention. The lack of an ac adapter//car adapter plug in area. itd be nice to be able to play without having to use up so many batteries.

[PatarWolfe]

I'd buy one these if it wasn't for the a b switch. I always hold the b button down while playing Mario for constant dashing. It looks like that would be uncomfortable with the button placement on this system.

[SPS148669]

On mine an audio glitch reverses the sound. It make high pitched sounds on original NES sound low and Low pitch sound on NES sound high on the handheld.

[badbluejoe1]

YOUR VIDEOS ARE JUST AWESOME

[agreekgod11]

Whats the song at the beginnig?? please i love it

[Ganbareg]

Still bud a very nice bit of kit gripes apart :)

[TheIanful]

Im going to get this soon and Im going to review it! Gotta love the pirated shit and what not.

[rescuehero942]

I Have this but with the Name ''Retro Mini''.

[smashmaster13]

i would not want it because of the ps1 stlyle d pad

[AfroedNinja]

looks cool, too bad about the button layout

[themoaspecial]

The reversed A,B buttons thing alone would be a deal breaker as you said.

[wolfenstien9000]

i got one..... never worked

[Bluerichmund]

@wolfenstien9000

i got one. the best thing i ever had.

i can take megaman 1-6 on the go. and i dunno why amrio has poor sound but teh megaman games actually are 100% right. teh music is as it should be.

[Icebitten]

yeah you should review the retro mini x

[pokemoneinstein]

Where the hell did you find that?

[aquaticblader]

what company made it and do they have other handhelds?

[dommiesan]

I'm not sure who made it. Yobo maybe. For other handhelds, I have an original GameBoy, a Gameboy Advance SP, and a PSP Slim.

[Ace9921]

Hyperkin makes the FC Mobile. If you want one, however, don't get this FC Mobile. Instead, get the FC Mobile II. It's a MUCH better version of the FC Mobile which fixes many of the problems that this FC Mobile has.

[UltraWill96]

@aquaticblader they have this, a s genisis mobile. & a Snes mobile.

hope i heloed.

[HUNTEMDOWN123]

It'd be better if they didn't switch the buttons :\

[Jakester12621]

Review the Retro Mini X!

[sawfan25]

u bought the shitty one. the fc mobile 2 is better it has wireless controllers and light gun and has turbo a b buttons and start select next 2 each other

[morgangamer22]

nice

[NLSONIC1234]

where did you find this

What kind of store

[daftbottv]

the reset button placement was reason enough to keep me from buying this. Thanks a TON for saving me 50 bucks.

[MacCreator]

the d-pad is from a playstation

[jedahdoma]

Yea I saw this at a local pawn shop. Though the one I saw had 2 wireless controllers and a gun. Very odd little find indeed.

[AVGNfanNO1]

does it play PAL games

[squirm13]

Do you know if import games can be played on the fcmobile with a game genie?

[alpineracerr]

game genie could never play the import games you need a adaptor, seems abit bulky to have the cart sitting on top. looks half decent though

[agonzalez0880]

does the contra konami code work on this

[Lommy1337]

LOL if the fc mobile can play Gradius, it can probably work..

[shpladau]

OF COURSE!

[JerryTerrifying]

I really don't see how the sound quality would be an issue for something that has such poor sound to begin with. And the switching of the A and B button while slightly annoying for about 2 seconds shouldn't take long to get used to. I had this argument with some people abut the Mega Man Anniversary Collection for the Gamecube, the buttons were switched. Took me all of INSTANTLY to become used to it.

[dommiesan]

Sound quality was never in question with the NES... it rocked. Keep in mind the hardware was on the market in 1983. Nothing even came close. Atari was able to produce 3 notes and 1 noise generator, and this was the biggest competitor with the 2600 until Sega upped the ante a few years later with the Genesis.

And the A, B button switch is impossible to work with if you've logged over a decade of playing the games with the opposite configuration on the original set-up.

[JerryTerrifying]

The AB switch is not impossible. I've been playing games on my NES since I was like 4..that's 22 years of of being familliar with the set up. Once I hit a button and know that the button makes you jump I'll never have a problem jumping no matter where they put the button or what they call it. Maybe it's not possible for you, but for me, with over two decades of Mario experience, it is not an issue at all. It wasn't an issue for me with Mega Man and I doubt it'd be an issue for me with Mario.

[dommiesan]

Whatever. I've been gaming since 1979, which is more or less since video games existed, and it is impossible for me because I'm so accustomed to the regular way. I guess I'm just a grumpy old man. If that's the case with you and you don't mind it then buy an FC Mobile by all means. I still think it blows and it doesn't have my endorsement.

[FlorentineBeauty]

My FC Mobile also takes 4 AA batteries. However some of the systems I've seen on reviewed only take 3. Why this difference between units? At least the battery life is good, as I've been playing it for many hours and it still works. Overall I am very pleased with my purchase.

[Savagex95810]

Would it be worth buying off of Ebay for 30-35$?

p.s Plz answer my question

[JerryTerrifying]

Get the FC Mobile II. Google it, it looks a lot better than the first model.

[kyuss015]

The D-pad  looks like a Playstation D-pad. It still's fairly cool, but its more novel than anything.

[DocHackenbush]

It's generally no good idea to put the reset-button close to the action-buttons. I know it would kill me...

[jerman2003]

Sounds like reversing the a, b make running on super mario impossible. Nice idea, but like you said once the noveltie of it wares off....

[Hiryu7777]

$45 for that? A lot more cheaper than the DS or PSP, even though this and the other portable game systems aren't exactly the same. Seems pretty nifty if you have a bad NES.

[hundredandfour]

wow thats so cool

what year did this thing come out? i never heard of it before.

[dommiesan]

I don't know exactly when it came out, but it's relatively new. Maybe within the past year.

[hundredandfour]

really that recently? i would have figured a little earlier than that, i kinda figured Nintendo was done with all their NES-type stuff.

i thought they stopped making that stuff a while ago and went on with the DS and Wii products.

[dommiesan]

It's not an official Nintendo product. It's made by a clone company called Hyperkin. Nintendo tried to sue them but the courts found in favor of Hyperkin because Nintendo's patents on the NES had lapsed.

[hundredandfour]

ooooooh

that explains a lot.

[vintagevideogamegeek]

Good job with this Dommie. I can't beleive they screwed up the A-B button thing. Don't they test market this stuff???

I'm kind of lost on the whole portable game system thing to begin with, but this one makes even less sense to me. For all the trouble it would take to lug the games around and not be able to play two players, you might as well throw the whole NES in your backpack and bring it with you.

[dommiesan]

It's more of a novelty thing, but it's definitely cool. I'll be flying next week and this is definitely going with me to the airport.

Plus it allows you to play Kid Icarus while on the can. That's worth $45 to me alone! :-)

[vintagevideogamegeek]

Thanks for that unwanted imagery Dom.

[dommiesan]

Sorry bout that.

But don't tell me you wouldn't do the same if you had one! ;)

[vintagevideogamegeek]

I don't know...I can poop pretty fast. Okay...this conversation needs to end.

[marceloyanez111]

ive tried lots of these and they all have the same cartridge inserting problem

[CCowell125]

Like all other unofficial clone systems, I assume this isn't avaliable in the U.K. without having to import from America. It looks alright, certainly wouldn't go on the bus or elsewhere in public aswell myself. xD

Ahwell, at least at May in the U.K., we're getting a brand new, official Mega Drive. =D

[KHIIFMForums]

LOL! "If u want to play 2 player games, your pretty much Screwed" xD that was the quote of the day

[james42519]

have you ever seen or played the retro duo (nes and snes in one)or genx i think (sega gen and nes), jsut want to know what you think of them. i heard they are better then the fc twin or yobo and seems liek there are some good reviews about it.

[VargasXX78]

Wow... I have never seen this thing before now... I mean, the concept seems ok, especially with a big NES collection.... and the screen seems alright...

But is it heavier once you put a game in it?...

[dommiesan]

The thing isn't exactly light. Maybe about the same weight as the original GameBoy brick.

[Gamester81]

Great review. I have one of these, and the color patterns are way off when I use it. I have to restart it several times to get the right colors to work. I also agree the reverse buttons are extremely annoying.

[dommiesan]

Hmm, I thought the colors were spot on. Does your unit take 3 batteries or 4? Mine takes 4, but most of the ones I've seen on youtube take 3 so I think they may have changed the design at some point. It's also possible that your particular unit has a bad screen. These things were manufactured rather cheaply and they probably didn't have much quality control.

[BackForwardPunch]

If you are gonna keep using it you should open it up and fix the button issues. If you scratched out the trace to the button and soldered a small wire to the correct button, your problem would be solved in a fairly little time. I'd say its best to just cut the trace to reset altogether... You can just power on and off, whats the use?

[BackForwardPunch]

Oh and if you have Castlevania 3, I bet this won't play it. There's some kind of incompatibility with NES-On-A-Chips.

[dommiesan]

1 step ahead of you - I already opened it up to check out the button set-up and how hard it would be to reconfigure the buttons. Although I stopped short of pulling out the main board (looked like it could get messy with springs and switches), it appears the button switches are directly integrated into the mother board. Rearranging them could be a major main in the ass. Not that it can't be done, but I don't know if I feel like potentially destroying the thing just yet.

[BackForwardPunch]

Well if you decide to do it, if you get a good res photo I can tell you where to Cut traces or solder if you aren't sure...

[dommiesan]

Thanks for the offer, but I just found out that the FC Mobile 2 is slated to come out at the end of March with a new design and the proper button configuration. Bad timing on my part I guess.

[dommiesan]

And as for Castlevania 3, I don't have a copy. :(

I have heard this before though. If I come across a copy soon I'll definitely post the results. It's a shame that it's not Castlevania 2 that had the issues. I'd have no problem with a system that refused to play *that* game. ;)