Hyperkin 3 vs. NES toaster?

[noiseredux]

so after watching Ecstacy of Order, my wife really wants NES Tetris again. She was curious about the Hyperkin 3 which I've read is a pretty good fake-NES (plus has SNES and Genesis support, and can take real controllers). Mostly her thought is that this is a "new" console rather than an aged console. I have no idea honestly, as NES isn't my area of expertise. So for those of you really into the console, and keeping in mind she's mostly just looking to play Tetris, which route would you go?

*and seriously, why the F isn't one of Ninty's most popular games available on Virtual Console? If it had been she would have just bought the game there.

[Valkyrie-Favor]

SNES and Genesis support is nice. If you already have those consoles I'd go with the toaster. There's no worrying about whether your game is running properly and playing the way it's supposed to be played. Plus, I've never heard a clone that could generate the same deep sounds a NES can.

[Duke.Togo]

Ugh, I personally dislike these clones. Some games don't work, the sound is off, and they plain look ugly.

[KDub]

With the cost of one of those systems you can have a legit NES, replace the pin connector if needed, buy a few common games and probably still have money left. This and the fact that the NES won't have any issues with games, I'd vote for that one.

[Hobie-wan]

Another vote for the real thing.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

As you probably know, I have a lot of experience with Famiclones and own over two dozen of them.

The RetorN3 seems like a really cool system in theory, but there's a fatal flaw with it - it's made by Hyperkin. Hyperkin makes absolutely the worst of the premium priced clones. They are extremely slow to fix known issues and future revisions introduce brand new problems on top of old ones.

What you want to go with is the RetroBit Retro Duo. It will require a slight modification that requires soldering, but once done the RetroDuo is easily the best standalone Famiclone on the market.

Check out my video review.


To answer your other question:

*and seriously, why the F isn't one of Ninty's most popular games [NES Tetros] available on Virtual Console? If it had been she would have just bought the game there.

Nintendo no longer has the license to Tetris. Since 1995, Tetris has belonged to the Tetris Company, a group that now has sole rights. Nintendo produced a royalty-filled DS versioni n limited quanitires a few years ago, but they won't be re-releasing their NES version due to the royalties they'd have to pay.

[tintinmayo]

Another vote for the real thing. If you're not averse to the shortcomings of clones, you might as well just emulate. Even el cheapo netbooks and old laptops have enough power to emulate the NES.

[brunoafh]

If the sole reason you would be getting the console is to play Tetris, then I'd say just get a toaster. Why pay more if that's all you're concerned about?

If you think down the road you might want to get into NES collecting/gaming, spend the extra cash and get a top loader, it's absolutely worth it. The NES toaster will damage your games and give you all sorts of hell. Even after a pin connector replacement, they are still finicky and annoying.

But again, if all you want out of it is to run a Tetris cart, may as well go as cheap as possible.

[AppleQueso]

If the sole reason you would be getting the console is to play Tetris, then I'd say just get a toaster. Why pay more if that's all you're concerned about?

If you think down the road you might want to get into NES collecting/gaming, spend the extra cash and get a top loader, it's absolutely worth it. The NES toaster will damage your games and give you all sorts of hell. Even after a pin connector replacement, they are still finicky and annoying.

But again, if all you want out of it is to run a Tetris cart, may as well go as cheap as possible.

I've never heard this one before...

[brunoafh]

I've never heard this one before...

I don't personally have conclusive proof but I've read/heard that the way the toaster forcefully slams down the pins and locks them into place scratches up and damages the cart and it certainly makes sense to me, being that the toasters constantly need to have parts replaced and are notorious for not working very well. Thus leading to people blowing on the carts to get a proper connection, creating moisture in the cart/system connection creating even more damage.

Either way, a top loader is certainly the way to go if you're going to begin seriously collecting and playing NES stuff and guaranteed to be less finicky.