I will blog regularly once again, even if it’s just to rehash what I do at work. Thankfully, today was pretty much Peak Jeremy Parish, as we received our NES Classic Edition review unit.
I will have a full review up on USgamer tomorrow, but I can safely confirm that it’s cute as a button. The R.O.B./Zapper poster that comes with the thing really makes me hope they produce another one of these in a Deluxe Set that includes a tiny R.O.B. with miniature pieces for Gyromite and Stack-Up, so that people can fully appreciate that (1) Gyromite is pretty cool when played correctly and (2) Stack-Up is really, really not worth $500.
As you can see, though, the NES Classic Edition has a great interface. It’s simple and direct, but it still has those goofy little Nintendo touches. The way you have to hold down the A button so your save state overwrites the old one by pushing it out of the way is just great. The system has its flaws, but I really like it for what it is, and I’m happy I was able to procure a few preorders in the brief windows such things were available from U.S. retailers — this thing is going to make a wonderful Christmas gift.
Hopefully they’ve got the stock to handle demand. They should; it’s not like the equipment is high-end, but it wouldn’t be the first time Nintendo underestimated demand and lagged on manufacturing and shipping. The aforementioned immediate sell-out of preorders gives me some concern, but hopefully that’s given them enough time to gauge how many of these things they’re really going to need to ship.
Planning on getting one for my nephew; he’s 5, has just gotten into Mario in a big way, and is always excited to play SMB3 on my AVS when he comes to visit. (He couldn’t really wrap his head around SMB2’s wildly different play style.) I think he could be coaxed into enjoying the other games in this set, or at least some of them. We fired up Contra the other day; he agreed to it just to humor me, and asked if we could go back to Mario after the first level, but he seemed to enjoy it while we were playing. (I know the Classic Edition has Super C, not the original Contra, but I’m just using Contra as an example here.)
Looking forward to more on this blog!