I picked this up on eBay due to coolness factor alone. I went a little crazy and ordered this, a GenMobile, and a Retro Duo all in the span of like fifteen minutes. This arrived first, and I've had a little time to mess with it today. It cost me $40 shipped and came with an A/C adapter, and A/V cable, and two controllers. Here are some thoughts, along with a few pictures.
The console itself is very light, but luckily the plastic doesn't really have that cheaply made feel to it. It's about the size of an SNES-mini and has a pretty nice looking design for a Famiclone. The power switch turns on the Genesis side when it flips to the left, and the NES side when it flips to the right. The middle position signifies no power. There is also a large reset button to the left of the power switch.
(My son poked his head in here...
)
The NES cart slot is positioned near the front of the system, and the Genesis slot is behind it. This seems like a bit of a design flaw to me, because when you have two cartridges in the system, the Genesis one is hidden behind the NES cart. Not a huge deal, just kind of a weird decision on the developers part.
My main gripe with the cart slots is how loose the cartridges sit in them. It's hard to get them into the slots to begin with, and although they are equally hard to remove, they have no support where they sit. You can rock them back and forth just by touching them, and it's a bit bothersome.
The controllers are a bit light, and unfortunately they do have the cheaply made plastic feel to them. They are obviously modeled after the Genesis controller. They are actually quite functional though, and I haven't had any problems using them. One thing I did notice is that the NES buttons are mapped backwards. You would think it would drive me nuts, but I've accidentally mapped joypad buttons backwards on emulators enough times to the point that its easy to get used to. I can see where it would be a deal breaker for most people though.
As far as the games go, I tested out Mega Man 2 and Gunstar Heroes. The graphics looked fine on both games, but the sound was noticeably more quiet on the NES side than on the Genesis. The music did sound a bit off on Gunstar Heroes, but it didn't really ruin the experience in my opinion. It was just a bit... tinny I guess.
I'm glad I picked this up, even though I already have multiple versions of the NES and Genesis consoles. It's definitely a neat little console to have in your collection. If the twelve year old in you would have had a heart attack from pure joy at the thought of this console, then you will probably love it.
