Family Game Famiclone

I am always on the hunt for Famiclones, and when I see one that I don't already have I tend to obsess over it. A few months back that's exactly what happened, and after persuaded someone to buy it for my birthday it finally arrived. I tore open the box to reveal a beautiful grey Family Game Famiclone, in the Famicom style housing, in great shape.

I was dying to test it out, so I wasted no time digging out my box of Famicom games, pirates and multi-carts. After hooking everything up I pulled the player 1 controller out of its slot on the console, grasped it firmly in my grubby paws and flipped the power switch. Perfect! Its working like a charm, I'm so excited to finally have a working Famiclone that looks this close to a genuine Famicom.

After playing with it for a little while I noticed that the colors weren't right, which confused me as I was under the delusion that this was a discreet Famiclone with cloned CPU and PPU chips, giving it the proper color palette and sound response. I wasn't worried too much because I was still enjoying my experience with the console. The AV output was a bit wavy as well, which wasn't a huge deal, but it still is something I'll have to take a closer look at.

Shortly after that I wanted to switch from AV and check out what the RF picture may look like, just out of curiosity, so I pulled out the AV cables and plugged in my NES RF adapter. The picture was absolutely horrible, I mean beyond playable, with bands in the background that far exceed that of the NES top loader. But what did I see between the static lines and wavy screen? The colors were absolutely perfect and 100% correct. My mind was blown, I was confused.

Maybe I could clean up the plugs and freshen up the picture, yeah that should to the trick. Nope. Well what if I did a search on my TV, to see if it could pick up the correct broadcasting for the Famiclone's RF signal. Nope, strike 2! Well that's fine, I don't need RF anyway, it looks much better through the AV outs, albeit with the incorrect color palette and wavy screen.

After playing Bases Loaded (Moero!! Pro Yakyuu) I did notice the console was tapping into the extra audio channel that my Dreamstation did, so at least I was getting the extra sounds. But in the pursuit of better knowledge on how to fix the AV output I decided to change the TV I was using and see if that made a difference in the video quality, and surprisingly it did, but in a very weird way! On the second TV I immediately noticed the RF signal was perfectly fine, with correct colors, but the AV was completely unusable. After trying a channel search on it, which changed nothing, I decided I would just have to use the console through AV on my main TV and deal with it.

To further my understanding I opened the system up to check the solder joints in the AV section, when I was greeted by something I have never seen before. Is that... is that a concealed NOAC? I have no clue what I'm looking at, but it was solitary, nothing else populating the board for miles, so this had to be the brains of the operation.

As soon as I saw this Famiclone I obsessed over it partially because I had seen another blogger (133mhz) write two articles on one that looked exactly like this one. 133mhz wrote up (Part 1 and Part 2) about cleaning and restoring a Famiclone, as well as how to swap out the cloned CPU and PPU for the original Nintendo chips, essentially making the Famiclone 100% a Famicom. My thoughts were to get my hands on a clone just like his and, sometime down the road, swap out the chips and have a Famicom with AV out, but seeing what I see now that's impossible. Even though they are identical outside they are far from the same on the inside, but that still doesn't concern me, as this is my first, properly functioning, Famiclone that looks like a Famicom.

Putting the technical issues aside, I originally had reservations about how the controller had the cable coming out of the top, instead of the sides. After playing with the console for a while, I feel this was a wise choice as this is what I'm more familiar with from the NES as well as almost all of my Famiclone controllers.

With the cable placement out of mind, I did find a few things that are slight concerns, but nothing more than slight. The Button layout is very close to one of my favorite third party NES controllers, so I'm familiar with that layout, but the edge of the buttons are much more rigid and come to an edge, instead of a smooth round off, which is just a bit weird. Also the D-pad is a complete 360 circle, which I sometimes find doesn't allow for accurate movement, instead pushing down to duck causes me to go off to the right a little.

Besides the concealed NOAC not allowing me to swap it out for real Nintendo chips, I'm perfectly ok with this system. The controllers are comfortable, the system works and offers the extra audio channel, which is all I really want in a Famiclone anyway. I feel I can sort out the video quality issue at some point, making this an extremely awesome little Famiclone, but until that I can completely enjoy it just the way it is, and I do!

NES Sized Pirated Multicart

A long while back I received a Home Computer System Famiclone. What I didn't realize was that the chip that controls the controller input was dead, but the rest of the console worked perfectly fine. When I flipped the console on I was met with a multicart list of games, among which were Mortal Kombat and Street Fight 8-bit pirates. Knowing the console may take a while to fix, I painstakingly removed both ribbon cables holding the multicart board into the system and carefully, since I didn't have any desolder wick, smoothed out the solder as much as I could on all 60 contacts.

Originally I wanted to immediately jam the board into one of my home made Famicom to NES converters and test it out, but as I didn't do too well smoothing out all the solder on the contacts I decided I would go ahead and use one that I hadn't officially turned into a converter yet. After opening the cartridge I removed the Gyromite board and pushed in the pirated multicart board. Everything was going well until I heard a cringe worthy crunch, upon inspection I had gnarled up the inside of the converter.

With some slight adjustments I managed to get everything aligned enough so that it fit and worked perfectly. Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter are what you would expect in 8-bit, slow and kind of boring. The cartridge has many other games built in, but the most name worthy of all had to be the two demakes of well known 16-bit games.

After I pulled the cartridge from my NES I decided it would be best to just remove the Gyromite label and leave the whole thing together, there was no sense in making a converter with a board hanging out of it. Sadly since I was in a bit of a hurry to test out the cartridge, and slightly messed the converter up, I don't think I'll be able to pull them apart, even if I did it really wouldn't be worth it. Even though the cartridge was a 5 screw configuration I could only use 4, as the board covers up the one in the center, but with the 4 corners being screwed down I haven't had any issues.

It was a simple and small project, but well worth what little time it took. I'm thinking of making a label for the cartridge as well, just so it looks better than all grey. Strange to think now if I wanted to play this on a Famiclone I would need an NES to Famicom converter.

Why I Have a Passion for Famiclones.

Why do I have such a passion for Famiclones? To say that's simple to explain wouldn't be true, and to say it's complicated wouldn't be true either. But then again I understand perfectly why I have such a passion for Famiclones, so I guess its just easier if I took the time to explain it.

Famiclones were never on my video game hunting radar until about 2010, hell I wasn't even familiar with the Nintendo Famicom until about a decade earlier. I live in the United States, where it seems we selectively import what we want from other cultures and never bother to import anything that doesn't fit our current commercial needs. We already had the NES, so why would we want another system that was essentially the same but looked different? Not to mention the cartridges weren't interchangeable without an adapter.

It's not to say the US didn't have an import market, it was just that I never knew about it for most of my life; and even when I found out it seemed very niche, and must less popular than it is now. As an adult I'm now noticing that Canada seems to have imported Japanese video game culture, on a much broader scale then the US, for decades! Mexico has not only been importing Famicom games and consoles, but also the Chinese pirate versions as well. So why did it seem that the US interest in Japanese video game culture was so niche and underground? Your guess is as good as mine, perhaps even better!

Once I knew, or assumed falsely to be more accurate, Famicom games were expensive and wouldn't work in my NES, I completely removed them from my scope of collecting. About 2010 is when I started to see a large influx of portable Famiclone consoles, the Power Joy and Super Joys, in the thrift stores I frequented. It wasn't until I found an extremely cheap Power Joy that I ever really took interest in the whole Famiclone market.

Just having a non-working Power Joy gave me reason enough to do some research on the whole history of Famiclones, I'm a sucker for researching things I enjoy researching. The results were astounding; Famiclones came in all shapes, sizes, colors and where spread throughout the world, far and wide! Famiclones could take on the shape of penguins, racecars, N64 controllers, alien space ships, pseudo officially licensed consoles and even shaped exactly like a Nintendo Famicom. The more research I did, the more interested I became in the subject, causing even more research.

I found it intriguing how they could fit a fully functional (although not really 100%) Famicom clone into the many various shaped consoles and controller style portables. Not only that but the fact that some consoles, and most every portable Famiclone, had built-in Famicom/NES classics without the need for external cartridges, while still adding a 60 pin connector for just that matter in case the user desired it. All of this really appealed to my OCD for keeping things neat, tidy and confined within small spaces.

Knowing these systems were a potential way to play Famicom games, which was a far cheaper alternative to importing the Famicom console, sparked my interest in importing Famicom games. But before my interest in Famicom games could fully blossom, my interest in the dark, seedy world of piracy and its strange history firmly planted itself within the fertile soil of my brain and grew into a vine that encompassed my cerebrum and short circuited my interest in the real thing.

The story of how Famiclones and pirated games came from the desire to have the nice things every other country had, but most countries couldn't afford, also appealed to me, the sheer ingenuity! Call them demakes, pirated or even cheap junk, but these were all the exposure some countries had to the classics we have so readily available. Faced with a desire for the finer things in life, a choice needed to be made. The birth of that choice was an extremely interesting line of consoles and video games that simulate/emulate something most people take for granted.

I take great interest in the way they take consoles that most gamers already know and modify them in drastic ways, while making the internals as simple, yet functional as possible. Although functionality of Famiclones run the gambit from very good to only lasting a few months, I'm certain a lot of engineering goes into the planning and manufacturing of these systems, and engineering is exactly what makes my heart race when I see a new Famiclone I've never seen before.

Necessity is the mother of invention. The need to fill a market left empty in many countries by financial hardships or trading limitations has created something fascinating, a whole sub-market of video games and video game consoles that gave many people the pleasures they couldn't otherwise have. Whether you hate them or love them, the fact is they always will be a part of video gaming history. Even if nothing more than a footnote.

Famiclone Controllers

Over the last few years I have collected a plethora of Famiclone controllers, out of habit and for variety. Some of these controllers didn't come with their respective consoles, but I knew they were Famiclone controllers and picked them up anyway. I won't be giving any extremely in-depth information about the controllers in this article, but I figured this article may help out someone who is faced with a wild Famiclone controller on whether they should take it home or not.

I don't know what to call these (I found 2) controllers other than "the silvers". Blatantly modeled after a Playstation controller, with a few liberties in design thrown in, these controllers are fairly comfortable. The A and B buttons are set to X and O, respectively, meaning that like the other 80% (or more) of Famiclone controllers these too have a backwards A and B scheme, often throwing off the ability to play simple games. I'm not sure which Famiclone these came from, but they seem compatible with all Famiclones, at least the ones I've tested them on.

The Power Player controllers come packed in with the Super Joy Famiclone systems. Over the years I have found plenty of these laying around thrift stores and I would dare say they are the most common Famiclone controllers out there. With a pseudo Genesis shape they are as comfortable as any Genesis controller, although significantly lighter and more bulky. Again the A and B are backwards, as the C button functions as Select, since there is only a stand alone start button. Again these seem universally compatible, so if you need Famiclone controllers in a pinch, these are most likely to be easier to find and ready to go.

The Powerstation controllers are, again, based on the Playstation, even Powerstation is kind of a play on the former's console name. If you're familiar with the Playstation controller, you're pretty much familiar with this one too! Comfortable, A and B are in correct alignment with turbo buttons just above them, diagonally left. This controller even features shoulder buttons being: L1 is B, R1 is A and pressing both L2 and R2 is the equivalent of start. The plastic, although still the cheap melty kind, feels good and solid in your hands, topped of with a good cable length. Seemingly universal as well.

I picked up the Super Video Game controllers with my 57000 Super Video Game, which displays a Playstation feel throughout. Sadly I had to add the D-pad myself, but even so these are very comfortable, albeit maybe a tiny bit smaller than a normal PS controller. The A and B backwards, unsurprisingly, but Z functions as an additional turbo B and C an additional turbo A. Seemingly universal!

Obviously if you're going to try and pass off a discreet Famiclone console as the genuine you'll need to clone the controllers as well! Very familiar Famicom style and comfort with buttons in the correct places and familiar turbo buttons within easy reach. There isn't really much else to say about this controller, other than I do have some third party NES controllers in this design and they are among my favorite NES controllers. Assumed universal.

Some Famiclones tried to mimic the Super Famicom, while having either a 60 (Famicom) or 72 (NES) pin connector built in. I've seen these controllers in both a DB-9 (Atari, Sega, Famiclone) end and even an NES controller end. The SNES style is very comfortable and familiar, A and B are where they should be, with turbo buttons clearly marked. The plastic is a bit chip, as per usual, but the cable seems like a quality thick cable. Again, assumed universal.

The Power Joy!

Ahhh, the Power Joy! The very first Famiclone I ever owned, as well as the one that kicked off my whole adoration for the Famiclone species in general. I had seen them before, strewn about the shelves of various thrift stores, but it wasn't until someone went a bit cheap with the pricing gun that I dared to take a chance and pick up one of these fabled "console in a controller".

The very first one I picked up was just the controller; no cartridge, no second player controller and no battery door. Ignorantly I used an NES power adapter to try and boot the thing and within seconds the pungent aroma of heavily leaded solder filled the air around the system, with no signs of life I quickly unplugged it and packed it away. I had seen a lot of people online showing off that the system would play Famicom games, a console I had yet to tap into, but with no way of powering mine up properly, or even know if it would ever work again at this point, I had to keep on searching for another.

It took a while but finally I had found myself another Power Joy that came complete, with the battery door and the PJ-008 cartridge, so I pulled my original one from its thrift store bag casket in my closet and give it a good play through. Without a cartridge plugged into the system there are 10 built in games, most of them taking advantage of the built-in light gun, which is quite accurate! Almost all of these games are based on different hacked versions of Duck Hunt, replacing the ducks with helicopters, alien ships, etc.

The PJ-00X cartridges are probably one of the best features of the Power Joy line, as they offered the choice of many great Famicom/NES titles. Mine came with the PJ-008 and I've seen different lists of games given to the same # cartridge, Chinese quality control there, huh? But the great thing about the cartridges is the simple fact that they work in an NES (w/ converter) or a Famicom, obviously as the Power Joy is a NOAC.

One of the main reasons I enjoy the Power Joy is due to its all-in-one design, so I don't need to hunt down accessories and parts if I want to play the thing. The Power Joy is strictly utilitarian but quite comfortable, as well as painfully obvious that this was spawned from the breeding of a Nintendo 64 controller with a fighter jet model kit. One of the major features, at least to me, is that unlike the Super Joy units the joystick on the Power Joy is fully functional, yet only a digital pad and not analog.

Another utilitarian feature that I quite like is the hardwired AV and power cables, although I think the power input could have easily been put about the same spot as it was in the Super Joy systems, but thats just splitting hairs. This means I don't need to hunt down a set of AV cables when I want to play the system, making the Power Joy completely portable. Powered by 4 AAA batteries, you're good to take this thing almost anywhere you need to go, as long as there is power for a television.

And finally we reach something that Super Mario Bros. taught us all those years ago, other people want to play too, and they have as much right as we do, us controller hogs! It took me a while to actually track down a Power Joy second player controller, but I did and its fairly standard, yet pretty good. My only complaint would be that the spacing on the grips is a bit strange, which I personally can't use it for too long, but then again that could be a ploy to keep people from wanting to become player 2.

I currently own the Power Joy and Power Joy Voyager, but I hope in the future I will find more Power Joy systems and even more of the cartridges. I'll never forget the first time I passed up an absolutely complete Power Joy for $10 at a thrift store, but through time and patience I've pieced one together, with a spare one for parts if needed. The Power Joy is nothing more than pure Chinese piracy and I don't really favor it over any of my other consoles, or even Famiclones, but it was my first and thus I will forever remember the joy and excitement of exploring a world that was completely new to me.

The Dreamstation Famiclone

The Dreamstation was a console I stumbled upon at a local flea market, after I spotted a yellow pirate multicart on top of its box. It was also my first proper Famiclone console. I had just bought the 57000 Video Games less than a month prior, but the Dreamstation was my first complete in box, with everything needed to get started right away Famiclone console.

Up to this point I was only familiar with the numerous handheld clones and the clunky 57000 Video Games, so when the Dreamstation actually worked as well as any of the officially branded systems I own, I was kind of shocked! The Dreamstation isn't flashy or splashy but it did exactly what I wanted it to do, it worked. The video quality was good, the sound quality was what you would expect from an NOAC, yet a year later I found out that the Dreamstation had a trick up its sleeve.

One night I was playing my (official) Famicom copy of Bases Loaded when I noticed the volume was much lower than any of the other games I had been playing, so I simply turned the volume up. Shortly after the game started I heard voice clips and additional sound effects I had never heard from the game before. The  Dreamstation was somehow emulating the FM synthesis chip from the Famicom.

None of my other Famiclones will play these voice or audio clips hidden deep within the game's coding. And the NES was never given the FM chip, so when I play that cartridge in my NES all volume levels are normal, but the game play is devoid of any real noise, I can tell there are missing sound effects. I'm not exactly sure how the Dreamstation is able to emulate or replicate the FM chip, but I know for a fact it does.

Besides being able to emulate FM sounds and overall functioning better than any of my other Famiclones, the Dreamstation isn't without it's faults, simply the short controller lengths. I covered this in my controller extension cable article. But to their credit the A and B buttons are laid out like an actual NES, with A and B shoulder buttons as a cool bonus, meaning I can use these controllers without getting confused by backwards controls.

In addition to the controllers the Dreamstation also included a gun, which looks insanely too real to be used outside of the home. The trigger on mine was snapped off by the previous owner, but even so the light gun is quite accurate and comfortable to hold. Not surprisingly the included pirate multicart has quite a few variants of games to test the gun out, which is handy.

Not only did the seller toss in the above mentioned cartridge, which looks a lot like a Nintendo 64 cartridge, they also included the yellow cartridge, as I stated at the beginning of the article. Both cartridges are filled with the standard pirated games as well as some random hacks tossed in. Finally I have a pirate cart with Dream Mary built in! (Super Mario Bros. with the wrong scrolling)

I've seen many other Famiclones in this shell with various other names, but I'm not sure if they are the exact same board inside or not. Which makes me wonder if they would all be able to emulate the FM chip. So far the Dreamstation is my favorite Famiclone console that I own, but if there is a better Famiclone on the market I'm sure I'll track it down!

Power Games aka Penguin Famiclone

The Power Games Famiclone, aka the Penguin Famiclone, was one that I had seen a handful of times while doing research on Famiclones in general. Possibly the most extreme, and adorable, variant of all Famiclones, the system is housed within a simple Penguin shaped shell. The Power Games "Penguin" was a Famiclone I have wanted since the time I first saw it, but I never knew where, or if, I would ever run across one.

While the local Goodwill shelves are no stranger to the likes of the Super Joy III or the Power Joy controller based Famiclones, as far as I've seen they have been devoid of anything console based. I've learned that sometimes you need to trust your gut and just walk into a store, worst case scenario you had a little exercise and didn't pay them a dime! The other day that feeling struck me as I walked into a local Goodwill, where I eventually saw a boxed Power Games system sitting on a shelf.

As per (Goodwill) usual the box was open and everything was haphazardly thrown inside, yet I could see the Penguin was there, along with a lot of wires, so I decided to plunk down the $3.99 asking price and take a chance that it was complete. Once I got the thing outside and into the car, lucky for me, everything was inside the box and seemed as if it had only been played a handful of times, if that, and tossed straight back into the box. Sadly the Penguin's foot was broken off and the included multi-cart was busted open as well, but thats nothing a quick spot of hot glue hasn't remedied.. so far!

The box art is just as bland as any other box art you'll find across any other Chinese system, but there was a gold sticker on the front proudly proclaiming "108IN 1", so I was super curious to get this thing plugged in and thoroughly checked out! Once everything was plugged up and ready to go the first thing I noticed was how ominous the system looks with its beady little red eyes giving you the cold stare down. Secondly I noticed that there actually were 108 games built into the system itself and not coming from the cartridge, as I originally thought.

Most of the 108 built in games are unique with very few repeats/variations of the same game. The pirates did quite a good job with title screens and making slight changes to original games, enough to make the pirated version fun yet different, some are actually really fun but most of the games are just complete and utter junk! Games such as Desert Storm (Contra clone) and Overspeed Racing ( Rad Racer with a dash of Spy Hunter) are fun games that were simply redone, while games such as Assart, are completely new to me, but still fun to play.

The Power Games is unique in design but it isn't very practical, strictly using wireless controllers and not even offering the option for wired controllers, but it does give the light gun its very own port on the side. Player 1 has a completely wireless (via infrared) controller, while player 2 plugs into the first controller and both signals are sent from controller 1. The finicky nature of infrared is on full display as I'll often find myself not pointing the controller correctly and end up losing a life, but the worst part of this so called wireless controller is the way its eats batteries!

The controller designs, despite being infrared, are the standard Famiclone style of Playstation ripoffs, comfortable and merely functional, sort of. One of my main complaints about Famiclone controllers has been that they simply can't seem to get the layout of B and A correct, which is the case with the Power Games controllers. I have found controllers that manage to get it right, but since the Power Games system uses proprietary controllers without the option of using other controllers you're pretty well stuck with this fact.

After all was said and done I thought the saving grace came down to the included multi-cart, boy was I wrong. I had to take the broken cartridge apart and put the board into the Power Games manually, which took me a while to figure out which way to even put the thing into the system as it doesn't have angled edges around the cartridge slot. After putting the bare board into the system the right way I heard the extremely familiar jingle of the 12000 in 1 menu of a couple of my Super Joy III units.

From the wireless controllers that are minimally problematic, yet problematic just the same, to the limited handful of built in games that are entertaining, the Power Games turns from a practical Famiclone into more of an occasional conversation piece. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I own the Power Games system, but I have other Famiclones that work better and offer the option of correctly mapped controllers. That means this poor Penguin is most likely doomed to spend most of his days in the closet.