Famiclones with Gamecube?

One of our readers writes,

"Hey man, I've been trying to figure this out for some time, and you seem very knowledgeable on the subject. Do any of the GBA Famiclones (such as the Time Machine SP, or the Handy Famieight) have the physical ability to plug into the Gameboy Player port on the Gamecube?"

I have no idea myself since I have neither a Gamecube or a Gameboy Player however, I suspect not. It looks like the GBA game cards plug directly into the Gameboy Player. The Handy Famieight does have RCA out as do other portable famiclones such as the FC Mobile and newer B/Retro-Bit Retromini-X so those might be options if your end desire is to play your NES games on your TV.

Anyone have any suggestions for 'networking' a famiclone with a Gamecube or which one would work best?

Attack of the Famiclones

Famiclones, game consoles that play 8 bit Famicom (Japanese Nintendo) games, are so freaking sweet. There are many Famiclones on the market though the selection of portable Famiclones is a rather smaller selection. When comparing portable Famiclones several different considerations must be made. These include availability, quality, genuineness of experience, and possibly the ability to play NES games.

First of all it bears mention that it is quite possible to emulate a Famicom with several different non Famiclone handheld options. These are not true Famiclones since even though they can run Famicom and NES ROMs they do not use the original cartridges. All the options that can run Famicom ROMS can also run NES ROMs, as the only differences between Famicom and NES games are the size of the carts and the pin layouts. They include PDAs such as the gaming optimized Tapwave Zodiac, I Phone, some cell phones, GP32, hacked PSP, or my personal favorite, the open source GP2X. All the listed options should, in general, be capable of emulating the NES/Famicom without too much trouble and software is available for all the above options. A key disadvantage (or advantage if cartridges are not your thing) of these options is that the games are not played off of original cartridges. Quality will vary by available emulators, screen quality, and control schemes. The issue of control schemes is perhaps the biggest consideration when looking at these options for use as Famicom/NES emulators. Since a consumer is not likely to purchase any of the above options primarily as a Famicom/NES emulator the primary use will likely dictate which product is obtained. Few of the multi use options are going to have great control schemes. If you want to use your cell phone you’ll need one with at least 246k RAM, a decent processor, and probably some way to attach it to your computer. The high profile cell phone that is getting a lot of independent developer support and development right now is the I-Phone. If you are a gadget nerd this is the obvious choice since it has the functionality of a PDA, internet browser, and MP3/video player. If you are looking for a dedicated classic gaming platform you can largely avoid the poor control scheme issue by purchasing a more dedicated device. Again I am going to recommend the GP2X. Though GP2X has not been featured here there is plenty of information available online.

The only recommendable “emulation free” option that does not require original Famicom carts is the Onestation. The Onestation is a Chinese cartridge based system that runs real Famicom/NES games on their own proprietary cartridge based system. It has great controls and a truly fantastic screen. The only disadvantage of the Onestation is a smaller available library of games though the available library includes both Japanese and US releases.

As far as availability goes the rarest Famiclone portables are in the category of NES Mods. An NES Mod of the portable variety is a hand made portable NES that is generally made with a NOAC (NES on a chip) and some sort of portable LCD packed into some form of custom case. These are some of the best and worst Famiclones since, depending on components used and craftsmanship, they can be far better and far worse than any commercially available Famiclone. The king of hardware mods is Benjamin J. Heckendorn who has made many different portable game systems from scratch. NES Mods are generally one of a kind creations and are therefore very rare. The advantage of the systems is that there are many options to obtain the needed NOAC, screen, controls and cases to make your own. Another positive is that it can be built to accept NES games without an adapter. The negative is of course that you have to actually build said machine. Unless you have time, patience, and skill you should probably simply buy a portable Famiclone.

The first portable Famiclone was the Top Guy. It allegedly ran off of six D batteries and lasted about an hour. Top Guys are apparently about as rare as the yeti. I don’t really need to write much about this unit because neither you nor I will likely ever see one and most information is from blurry pictures and hearsay.

Slightly less rare is the Game Axe. This unit takes 6 AA batteries and was considered the best portable Famicom available for quite a while. The likelihood of you seeing one of these is about as likely as seeing a Zetland (half Zebra half Shetland Pony) in the wild. I am seeking both a Top Guy and Game Axe for my collection however they do not seem to become available very often. If by some chance you have one of either unit you are willing to part with or know how to get one please contact me.

This narrows the field to systems that are actually somewhat more likely for you or me to actually see.

There are a couple true Famiclone options that are add-ons for other established Nintendo systems. These include the Cyber Famulator which is an add on for the Nintendo DS as well as the Handy Famieight which attaches to the GBA or may be used with external controllers and attached to a television. Neither of these options is ideal as they add considerable bulk to already full sized handheld systems and, at least in the case of the Handy Famieight, have cheap enough feeling construction to hamper the experience. An advantage of the Handy Famieight is that, with some care, it is possible to use a NES to Famicom adapter with included external controllers and play NES games on your Tee Vee.

This leaves a few viable options which include the FC Mobile, Pocketfami, and Game Theory Admiral. The negative of all these systems is that none of them a quality screen. They do otherwise rate fairly well in availability, quality, and genuineness of experience. The lesser of the 3 options is the Game Theory Admiral. The GTA has a lower quality screen and stiffer, less responsive feeling controls than the other two options but the biggest negative is the way that the cartridge attaches to the unit. The slot on the top of the GTA fits no known game cartridges but instead fits a type of “game spatula” that attaches to the core unit and has the standard Famicom attachment on the end of it. This means that unless the Famicom cart fits very firmly it is pretty easy to unseat the carts during play. The unit is very funny, quirky, and last I checked, still available new from a seller on Amazon. Though the GTA does not appear to be being manufactured anymore it is quite inexpensive new, though as it becomes harder to find it will likely increase in price. The FC Mobile and Pocketfami are very comparable with a few differences that will make them more or less desirable depending on what an end user desires from the system.

The FC Mobile is a slightly better choice as a handheld. The screen quality is just a tad better and the controls, particularly the + pad feel much better. The design of the unit is understated with all black except for a couple of chrome accents around the speakers. The button layout is top notch except for the fact that the reset button sits just bellow and to the left of the A and B buttons. I did not find the reset button’s location problematic but there is a higher chance of an accidental press than with the Pocketfami. There is both a headphone jack as well as an A/V out jack that allows you to play on your Tee-Vee or with headphones. I have not found any incompatibility issues with any carts though I am sure some must exist.

The Pocketfami has a slightly lower quality screen and a + pad that does not feel quite as good but has some other features that make it otherwise desirable. Firstly the reset button is up above the + pad where it will not be accidentally pressed and in addition to the A and B buttons Pocketfami has AA and BB buttons that act as turbo buttons. The color scheme of the Pocketfami stays true to the original Famicom with a crème and deep red casing which in the unlikely event that you grew up with a Famicom will undoubtedly increase the nostalgia value. The worthwhile additions to the Pocketfami are the inclusion of TV out, AC/DC in, and 2 controller ports. This makes playing NES games on a Tee-Vee with controllers and the use of a Famicom to NES adaptor possible. I got my copy of Super Mario Bros. 3 to run pretty well with a minimum of graphical strangeness. I am not sure about the availability of controllers for the system as they do not have same pin lay out as any Nintendo controllers. I happened to have a couple compatible controllers that are used with the Handy Famieight.

In the final analysis the top three recommended options are:

1. FC Mobile, with fewer options than some other Famiclones, it offers a pure experience and has controls and a design that just feels nice. The screen is not of the best quality but is the best of the units that play Famicom games. It is only really practical for use with Famicom carts as a NES cart with an adaptor will stick very far out of the game slot.

2. Onestation, very small, quite inexpensive, with great controls and an excellent screen. System lacks access to the full library of games which is the biggest negative.

3. GP2X, can be a bit expensive, has excellent controls, a quality screen, and can run SNES, Scumm, MAME, Genesis, and other types of games in addition to NES and Famicom games thru emulation. It is not the best system to just pick up and play as it takes around 20 seconds just to boot up.

Dragon Handy Famieight: Take you back to FC / NES Wonderful TV Games Dream World.

Handy Famieight represents in some ways the culmination of my childhood. I have distinct memories of playing Voltron in grade school. Someone had the entire 15 piece vehicle Voltron set with which we, as the Galaxy Alliance, would fend off the evil Drule Empire... Actually I don’t think anyone knew about the evil Drule Empire. We just thought that a bunch of toy cars and planes that turning into a giant effing robot was effing sweet. All the boys on the playground had some sort of vehicle to play with even if it was some lame boat or motor scooter. It was all good fun until the asshat who owned the set wanted to form the giant robot then nobody had any fun. The days of playing with the giant Voltron set was short lived, as I believe that play devolved into fighting and breaking of toys. Naturally I, as I believe everyone else was, was a bigger fan of the lion Voltron. It was a lot easier to keep track of the 5 lions than all the vehicles. Five characters were more than enough to cover all the archetypes for basically any show for young boys. There is the Leader, the Kid, the Joker, the Girl, and the Brawler or Brain. I did not immediately remember if the Brawler or Brain was used in Voltron. I had to take a quick trip to Wikapedia to remind myself. I do remember that I would have gladly traded my Ewok village play set and all my Ewoks for those five lions. Oh and I had all the Ewoks.

The Handy Famieight is amazing. It reminds me a lot of the lion Voltron. The device is, even in its most stripped down form (pictured), too big to fit in anything but the largest of pockets. Much like the Black Lion, it forms the bulk of the unit. We will refer to the main body of the device henceforth as Black Lion or Captain Keith. Black Lion is made of the cheapest plastic. It is far flimsier than the die-cast lion toys of old. It features a wobbly digital joy pad on the left side and four buttons on the left labeled A, B, AA, and BB. The double letter buttons function as turbo buttons for the single letter buttons. There are also a set of Start and Select buttons. Much like Captain Keith, the base unit of the Handy Famieight is, to quote his Wikapedia article, “a quiet individual who spends much of his time pondering his decisions, thinking up new strategies, and simply being a leader”. Not much more needs to be said about Black Lion as the whole is much greater than the sum of its parts.

The Red Lion, left hand and second in command, was Lance Charles McClain. He was always cracking jokes. The Red lion of Handi Famieight attaches to Black lion through a pair of controller slots on the bottom of Black Lion. The choice of making the external controllers the Red Lion had less to do with the fact that the controllers are the secondary way to command the Handi Famieight and more to do with the fact that the controllers are a joke. You see what I did there? The controllers have all the buttons from Black Lion but are softer and less responsive and as a bonus they are made of even crappier plastic than Black Lion. It’s like awesome took a holiday and then someone designed Red Lion.

Darrell "Pidge" Stoker piloted the Green Lion and was the token kid from the group. The token kid of Handi Famieight is, rather arbitrarily, the set of AV in AV out connectors on the Handi Famieight. These cables allow you to hook the unit up to the TV or to run cables in to the unit and play them through the screen… But wait?! The Handi Famieight has no screen! Enter Tsuyoshi "Hunk" Garett AKA Yellow Lion!

The Yellow Lion and tough man of Voltron, Tsuyoshi "Hunk" Garett, to quote Wikapedia, “may look tough and mean, but has a soft heart, especially when it comes to children.” Just like the Yellow Lion of Handi Famieight. Yellow Lion is otherwise known as Nintendo GBA SP. Yellow Lion slides onto the front of Black Lion to display games or input provided by Green Lion. If you don’t know about Green Lion I’ll review GBA SP later. That’s just how cool Green Lion is, he gets his own review.

Before I move on to Blue Lion I’ll forego trying to describe the rest of Handi Famieight’s features and crib from the games manual.

Features

1. Ergonomic and comfortable style design.
2. Precise four way of arcade directional pad.
3. Super heavy bass of stereo speaker built in.
4. Single and turbo action button give you new experience.
5. Come with two piece of precise four way digital controller.
6. One player or two player depend on you and your friend request.
7. Use GBA SP console play your favorite of FC / NES games.
8. Use your PS II, PS I, XB, NGC, DVD player, video camcorder and other TV-game console system display on GBA SP console.
9. Take you back to FC / NES Wonderful TV Games Dream World.

Another passion of my youth was Nintendo. I have no idea where my Nintendo came from. I think I bought it myself with birthday money but I am not sure. I am aware of the time before the Nintendo (hence forth referred to as TBN) because we had no TV before we had Nintendo. The TV and Nintendo came into my life at the same time, in fourth grade. I know that I found the small black and white TV next to a dumpster at the apartment complex my mother and I lived at. It remains one of the most exciting days of my life. The discovery that people threw away valuable things fueled years of dumpster diving and packratishness.

I of course loved Mario and, though I spent god knows how many hours playing Super Mario, I never really improved. I cut my gaming teeth on Dragon Warrior and Mario. I spent countless hours on Dragon Warrior and it’s the game that really grabbed me. I hear the same story every so often working with gamers about how they learned to read by playing games but I was quite an avid reader prior to becoming interested in Video Games.

Princess Allura, who piloted the Blue Lion, made Voltron sexy much like the games you can play on Handi Famieight make Handi Famieight sexy. It may take an adaptor to play NES games but most of them work if you can keep the unit perfectly still. Famicom games work fine which make them both sexy and exotic much like Princess Allura. Princess Allura is the library of games that attach to Black Lion thru the Game Slot on the top of Black Lion.

Things were not all good when I first formed Handi Famieight/Voltron. I fussed around with it for quite a while and couldn’t get it to work. For some reason I could get my PS2 to display on the GBA screen but couldn’t get the Famicom version of Bomberman to play at all. To keep the analogy going this would be like Princess Allura and Hunk getting in a fight so Hunk, Pidge, and the Captain decide to team up with Optimus Prime. Finally I decided to consult the manual where I managed to glean the following nuggets of wisdom:

Power indicator light

When “Green Light” bright, means Handy Famieight in state of full power, but “Red Light” appear in “Green Light” center point. Means power is not enough to supply for Handy Famieight. Please first time to replace dry batteries or connect GBA SP / NDS AC adapter with Handy Famieight. Otherwise, GBA SP screen of FC / NES picture with stop motion or have many scratch line.

Dropping the analogy, this pretty much sums up the Handi Famieight. It is confusing to use, it is quirky, it uses dated technology, it is cheap and the makers paid little attention to detail Handi Famieight is a sub par game system and a completely ludicrous portable device. However, there is something undeniably cool and magical about Handi Famieight, just like a bunch of giant mechanical lions.