Original NES and SNES controllers

[Fallen Kell]

I highlighted the games I want out of that list. I also need Kid Icarus!

My games and hi-def NES consoles came today! I'm going to wrap up the NES gifts after testing them tonight. One of them, the power/reset buttons is pretty shady looking. The other is fairly pristine overall. I'm going to test each with Zelda 1 and leave it in the console before shipping them out.

I SERIOUSLY recommend adding Ducktales, Punchout, Kirby's Adventure, Super Dodge Ball, and Super Spike Volley Ball to your list. These games have all stood the test of time and are extremely fun to this very day.

 

[Ichinisan]

I SERIOUSLY recommend adding Ducktales, Punchout, Kirby's Adventure, Super Dodge Ball, and Super Spike Volley Ball to your list. These games have all stood the test of time and are extremely fun to this very day.

Just acquired DuckTales and haven't played it much, but I know that one endures.

I introduced a friend to Punch Out!! five years ago and he still plays the hell out of it. Great game.

Kirby's Adventure is one of the most graphically-impressive NES games. Ridiculously awesome.

I never really played the Dodgeball/V-Ball games, but I have them.

In addition...

Battletoads is another one of the most graphically-impressive NES games.

Contra - I've barely played this, but I know it's good.

Double Dragon - All my friends love this one. I never really got into it.

TMNT II: The Arcade Game - love love LOVE this. 2-player brawlers don't get more fun than this.

Dr. Mario - One of the best puzzle games ever. Catchy music.

SMB1,2,3 - Obviously!

Ninja Gaiden 1,2,3 - Obviously!

Batman - Great game with great music. Sunsoft was inspired by Ninja Gaiden.

Megaman 1,2 - Obviously!

 

[Fallen Kell]

I'm personally a huge Castlevania fan as well. You can probably just get by with going for 3, but having the first two are also worth it if you are a fan (2 is the most confusing and most definitely the worst of the bunch mainly due to bad translation).

 

[CZroe]

I'm personally a huge Castlevania fan as well. You can probably just get by with going for 3, but having the first two are also worth it if you are a fan (2 is the most confusing and most definitely the worst of the bunch mainly due to bad translation).

I'm on the fence about converting my copy to one of the hacked/fixed versions of Castlevania II. I'm curious about the expanded audio in the Japanese version of Castlevania III too (I'm sure someone has patched that to English).

I've been playing the original Castlevania on and off for the last year getting a bit further each time. I plan to play through all three in their original forms first.

 

[007ELmO]

Is the reason some of you guys have multiple games, is because of the glitching?

I think I really need the BLW mod, I need consistency, I don't think I want to spend time debugging why Zelda 1 is randomly crashing/showing garbled text/etc. I sort of expected with a new connector I wouldn't have had to deal with that, bad assumption I guess lol.

It's a shame I'm always late to the race with stuff! So far the other 2 hi-def NES are fairly consistent with loading/playing games though, hopefully jason fixes the other one. I read a lot last night about glitching/etc. and some people think it's because of a bad PPU.

 

[007ELmO]

I SERIOUSLY recommend adding Ducktales, Punchout, Kirby's Adventure, Super Dodge Ball, and Super Spike Volley Ball to your list. These games have all stood the test of time and are extremely fun to this very day.

I remember Super Dodge ball. For some reason I thought super meant it was on SNES (remember how many Super games there were?).

I do have Mike Tyson's Punchout (with Mike tyson on it). I hear good things about Duck tales. I'll add SDB and DT.

 

[Ichinisan]

Is the reason some of you guys have multiple games, is because of the glitching?

No. My dupes all work fine except for a bad copy of TMNT that is badly corroded.

They usually come together in lots. Sometimes I know the value is more than what is asked, so I buy it. If nothing else, it will be great trade fodder.

It was useful to have some dupes recently when my buddy started buying some Nintendo stuff.

 

[slag]

The only game I couldn't beat was ghost and goblins. I beat the demon king once and then you know.. well, I don't want to spoil it.. but i got so mad I threw the controller down and turned the damn thing off.

When I was in middle school, I spent the night at a friends house and over the course of a weekend, with lots of breaks in between, beat karnov. We played until our eyes hurt, slept 30 minutes, woke up, and kept playing.. About 20 minutes after we finally beat the game and were falling asleep the power went off at his house. Man, we were so lucky.

 

[007ELmO]

I distinctly remember my sister throwing the NES gamepad down in disgust and almost breaking it. Lol, it's funny to think about that stuff as adults now, but she did that knowing it was my console. I wasn't happy, but the NES controllers can stand up to a lot of punishment.

I remember my mom taking me to the rental store. I must have rented every game there 3 or 4x over. Think of how junky the 72 pin connector in there must have gotten, for the most part everything worked though (of course we were blowing on the cartridges which had both a positive and negative effect). I'm surprised the hi-def NES connector broke on the 1st try with Jason's.

I do have a used NES that is'nt modded, I wonder if it's a better idea to steal the 72pin connector from it/clean it, and use it instead the hi-def NES instead of these "crappy" 72pin connectors, until the BLW mod is readily avaliable to all?

 

[007ELmO]

Jason had a better looking hi-def NES on ebay. I shipped him back the faulty connector one, it's in transit now. I asked to pay for an upgrade to just get the one on ebay, he said that's fine. It's a cleaner looking unit, and hopefully it doesn't have any issues. Doubt he'll ship until he receives my broken unit, though...

 

[007ELmO]

OK, my sister got the hi-def I sent her!

She did have to push Zelda down in order for link to respond better, I shipped the NES with the zelda cartridge in the up position, because it worked fine for me - but she said after a few minutes Link would occassionally not respond or there would be a delay. She said it's fine, I said no it's not - do you know how hard zelda 1's dungeons are?

SO I had her try pushing the cart down and restarting and she says everything seemed fine then. Is this typical with the new death grip connectors?

 

[CZroe]

If the control stopped responding due to the cartridge not being pushed down then it would not start responding again until it was reset or power-cycled (it would not just stop momentarily). If you don't have BLW installed then the cartridge is really supposed to be pushed down, even if it does sometimes work when you don't. Some people chose not to in order to keep from stressing their contacts, but they are weirdos who don't realize that the trouble isn't worth it when they can just replace or refurb years from now for much less money/time.

 

[007ELmO]

Thanks, makes sense! Kind of strange that her control was intermittent.
I know I had some glitches with the one jason said was probably a connector issue, with Mario 3 jumping whenever he wanted or his jumps were 1 inch off the ground (lol). She played for 5 minutes and everything seemed fine.

I'll push my carts down too until BLW.

Thanks!

 

[Ichinisan]

1-inch jumps? Sounds like the controller had turbo switched-on.


Anyway, her problem with the controller locking up for periods of time kept happening to me when I used a Retrobit reproduction controller. It seemed like it was confused when I had to change directions quickly and it sensed diagonals or something.

Also, that controller locks-up the whole system with Zelda every time I try to save by moving the controller to socket # 2. It usually freezes the game when I remove it from port #1, when that doesn't lock-up immediately, it locks as I insert into controller port #2.

When I repeat the same test with an authentic controller, it doesn't freeze the game. I'm able to press Up+A on controller #2 and save without getting game-over.

 

[007ELmO]

Supposedly, these are new "old stock" OEM NES controllers we're using. I'd hate to think some people are lying in their ebay auctions. They are $28 from Hong Kong, USA sells them for $50.

Mario 3 did work fine on the other 2 hi-def NES consoles, but there were several glitches with the same controller on the connector issue. I'm going to chalk it up to hte cartridge not being pressed down, yet. I told her the stuff might glitch until we all get the BLW mod next year hopefully.

I also would hate to think the BLW mod would be out of stock for a long time, but one never knows.

 

[Ichinisan]

Supposedly, these are new "old stock" OEM NES controllers we're using. I'd hate to think some people are lying in their ebay auctions. They are $28 from Hong Kong, USA sells them for $50.

Mario 3 did work fine on the other 2 hi-def NES consoles, but there were several glitches with the same controller on the connector issue. I'm going to chalk it up to hte cartridge not being pressed down, yet. I told her the stuff might glitch until we all get the BLW mod next year hopefully.

I also would hate to think the BLW mod would be out of stock for a long time, but one never knows.

I'd like to see the insides of those controllers. Should have a chip with 2 rows of pins. My crappy reproduction has a glob-top instead of a chip.

Looked inside over a dozen authentic controllers and they each have an actual DIP package chip with legs.

 

[Fallen Kell]

That has been the only thing keeping me from trying to buy "new" old stock OEM controllers online. You just can't trust ebay at all, and you can't trust many of the "stores" either. Without seeing it in person, you really don't know what you are getting with most of those places.

 

[007ELmO]

So the new hi-def NES Jason sent me, it had problems getting games to start, but once I got the game started it played fine.

When I turn it on, sometime the power button red light turns off (and stays off) - and the screen is just gray.

If I power it off and on again, if the red light stays on, the game plays fine.

Should I expect these types of troubles until BLW comes?

 

[007ELmO]

Lol I got Jason mad about me complaining about it, I guess I was wrong to expect perfection for $400 a pop. I didn't know the replacement connector was this horrible! I was expecting consistency.

 

[CZroe]

I'd like to see the insides of those controllers. Should have a chip with 2 rows of pins. My crappy reproduction has a glob-top instead of a chip.

Looked inside over a dozen authentic controllers and they each have an actual DIP package chip with legs.

Actually, at least two of our four AV Famicom dogbones have SMDs for the encoder chip (haven't opened the fourth one).

So the new hi-def NES Jason sent me, it had problems getting games to start, but once I got the game started it played fine.

When I turn it on, sometime the power button red light turns off (and stays off) - and the screen is just gray.

If I power it off and on again, if the red light stays on, the game plays fine.

Should I expect these types of troubles until BLW comes?

I think I've had the power light go off while pressed in about twice on a particular NES that has a funny-feeling power button, but we still use it frequently. I've seen some games that always need a reset and I suspect capacitors (in the game or the console, I don't know).

Lol I got Jason mad about me complaining about it, I guess I was wrong to expect perfection for $400 a pop. I didn't know the replacement connector was this horrible! I was expecting consistency.

Ha ha! well, you know, even Nintendo's own instructions tell you to reseat it as if it's a normal part of operating an NES, so... yeah.

It's part of the experience. If you want perfect without reseating then Analog NT or HDMI NES in a toploader is the way to go.

That said, if I were him I would put a BLW into any HD NES I was selling just to increase the bid price even more.

 

[007ELmO]

I really hope the BLW fix the issues, I didn't know it'd be like that. Either way, if I can ever get my hands on one I'll buy it. Strangely I have a bad feeling it' sgoing to be sold out for a long time.

 

[Ichinisan]

I really hope the BLW fix the issues, I didn't know it'd be like that. Either way, if I can ever get my hands on one I'll buy it. Strangely I have a bad feeling it' sgoing to be sold out for a long time.

I bought 3 after the site said "back ordered," then saw a few days later that the site was back in-stock and my order was marked "completed." A day or 2 later, I read your post that they were back-ordered again. I think they keep coming back in stock and selling out immediately (holidays). They probably don't want to over-produce and be stuck with more stock than they can sell after this rush.

Go ahead and order, even though they are back-ordered. Or, if you want one of mine, I can sell it to you at-cost. Mine *might* arrive today. I chose the most basic shipping option and it was about a week ago when I read that my order was "complete."

[edit]

Did not arrive today.

 

[Fallen Kell]

I forget how long it took to get my BLW's. Mine were in the initial batch, so are a little tighter on the grip, but not horribly tight (as I originally said, it has approx the same grip strength as the top loader, but due to the lack of area to grip the game cart, that is a little much).

I would do like Ichinisan says and simply place the order with it being backordered. They only make them in batches because they know there is a limited market for the item (I mean, seriously, it is only the active players of NES-101's that will even want it, and of them, some are die-hard purists who do not want any mods at all on the system).

 

[007ELmO]

Thanks a lot for the advice and Ichisan, I appreciate it! I'll pay you double for one of yours if you'd like while I place an order for the others.

I just placed an order for 2 of them, although I would like to buy Ichinisan's to mod my own. My family can wait for theirs, lol. The site says in stock but also with this message:

"Availability: In Stock
Due to heavy backlog, all orders placed for this item has a estimated delivery date of 6-8 weeks."

 

[CZroe]

I forget how long it took to get my BLW's. Mine were in the initial batch, so are a little tighter on the grip, but not horribly tight (as I originally said, it has approx the same grip strength as the top loader, but due to the lack of area to grip the game cart, that is a little much).

I would do like Ichinisan says and simply place the order with it being backordered. They only make them in batches because they know there is a limited market for the item (I mean, seriously, it is only the active players of NES-101's that will even want it, and of them, some are die-hard purists who do not want any mods at all on the system).

NES-101 is the top-loader. Yeah, I know some reality show staged a "rare NES-001" discovery but they were WAY off: ALL front-loaders are NES-001. The reason the eBay auction they referenced went for so much money ("$13,000") was because it had a copy of Stadium Events. Stadium Events alone can go for that much.

As for the purists, none of them are going to be HD NES users unless they buy a second console for mods, which is why I think all HD NES installs in NES-001 consoles should have BLW. Less trouble for the installer for sure! I do wish the BLW mounted the game a little closer to the front of the console (more to grip).