Can a $10 8-bit handheld game console be any good? 

despite the terrible software on it for the most part… THAT kind of thing would have been a blast to have in the late 80s and mid 90s. A portable NES for just 10 bucks and a backlit colour LCD screen. That would have been the HOTTEST item to own back then :D

There are 310 different games and 90 dupes. I have bought one console for Xmas, these are the included games and their position: 10 Yard Fight #29 #341 1942 #100 4 Mahjong #74 #386 Abscondee #235 Adventure Island #14 #326 Adventure Island 2 #15 #327 Aether Cruiser #236 Aim Cruise #237 Aimless #188 Air Alert #186 Aladdin 3 #32 #344 Alpha Mission #163 Anatartic Adventure #33 Angry Bird #183 Animal Contest #238 Antarctic Adventure #345 Apple Chess #306 Aquarium #184 Arabian #34 #346 Arena #185 Argus #154 Arkanoid #101 Arkistas Ring #161 Aso #162 Astro Robo Saga #102 Awful Bushing #187 B Wings #103 Back to Future #166 Badmington #104 Ballon Fight #35 #347 Baltron #105 Base Ball #36 #348 Baseball New #193 Binary Land #37 #349 Bird Week #38 #350 Blocks World #239 Bokosuka Wars #106 Bomb King #192 Bomb Sweeper #40 #352 Bomber Man #39 #351 Bowling #164 Brush Roller #41 #353 Bubble #194 Bubble Bobble Par #18 #330 Bug Catcher #240 Bugs War #191 Burbles #189 Burger Time #42 #354 Burrow Explorer #190 Busy Bar #241 Candy Workshop #242 Cannonade #195 Castle Excellent #181 Chakn Pop #43 #355 Challenger #152 Chess #44 #356 Chinese Chess #151 Chip Dale 1 #16 #328 Chip Dale 3 #17 #329 Chubby Cherub #109 Circus Charlie #45 #357 Climbing #303 Close Quarters #196 Clu Clu Clu #46 #358 Coast Guard #197 Contest #243 Contra 24IN1 #8 #320 Contra Force #9 #321 Cookies Laybrinth #244 Crystal Ball #278 Crystal Blast #245 Cub Adventure #198 Defender #48 #360 Deformable #246 Dejiectile #247 Depth Bomb #199 DestroyI #110 Devil World #49 #361 Devildom Doom #200 Diamond #201 Dig Dug #50 #362 Donkey Kong #51 #363 Donkey Kong 3 #53 #365 Donkey Kong Jr Ma #54 #366 Donkey Kong Jr. #52 #364 Door Door #55 #367 Double Dragon 2 #22 #334 Double Dragon 3 #23 #335 Dough Boy #112 Dr Mario #4 #316 Dragon #113 Duck #115 Dune War #202 Egg Contest #248 Elevator Action #116 Escapeway #249 Exctebike #56 #368 Exed Exes #117 Exerion #57 #369 F1 Race #58 #370 Fairs Treasure #250 Falling Blocks #251 Fated Pirate #252 Field Combat #47 #159 #359 Final Blood #253 Fire Base #203 First Defender #204 Fish Story #254 Fish War #307 Five Days #205 Flappy #118 Fling Ball #255 Flipull #165 Formation Z #59 #371 Forrest Adventure #256 Frantic House #206 Friday The 13th #160 Front Line #60 #372 Fruit Dish #207 Fruit Gift #257 Fruitdish #119 Galaga #61 #373 Galaxian #62 #374 Galg #120 Gallagant #208 Garden War #209 Gate #210 Geimos #121 Ghost Castle #258 Gog Dug 2 #111 Golden Bird #259 Golf #63 #375 Goonies #155 Gradius #167 Greeds #260 Gyrodine #122 Hallihoo #211 Hammer And Nail #261 Happy Match #262 Hexa #123 Hexapod #212 Hexapod War #213 Hokuto No Kem #168 Hot Blood High Sc #24 #336 Hot Blood Wrestle #25 #337 Hyper Olympics #65 #377 Hyper Sports #66 #378 Ice Climber #67 #379 Ice Hockey #124 Ice Ocean #263 IQ Champion #264 Island #265 Jackal #12 #324 Jewelry #73 #385 Joust #68 #380 Jump Jump #182 #266 Jumping Kid #267 Kage #11 #323 Karateka #69 #381 King Knight #169 Labyrinth #214 Lightning #268 Little Witch #269 Load Runner #70 #382 Lot Lot #125 lunar Ball #71 #383 Lunarian #215 Lunation #302 Mach Rider #153 Macross #72 #384 Mad Xmas #216 Magic Egg #270 Magmax #126 Mahjong #75 #387 Man in Red #271 Mappy #76 #388 Mario 14 #2 #314 Mario Bros #5 #317 Meccano #272 Mickey Mouse #170 Mighty Bomb Jack #107 Millipede #78 #390 Mirroe #273 Mitsume Ga Tooru #20 #332 Moaikum #180 Mortal Combat IV #27 #339 Motorboat #217 Mouse Hero #275 Mouse Snare #274 Move Box #311 Mowing #276 Muscle #79 #391 Naitoug Dan Shoug #80 #392 New man #171 Nibbles #81 #393 Ninja 1 #82 #394 Ninja 2 #128 Ninja 3 #83 #395 Ninja Gaiden 2 #21 #333 Nut Cracky #277 Nuts Milk #77 #389 Onyanko Town #130 Orchard #310 Othello #85 #397 Paber Boy #172 Pac Land #131 Pac Man #86 #398 Pachi Com #132 Panzer Attack #218 Penguin Kun Wars #149 Penta Base #219 Pika Chu #127 Pinball #87 #399 Ping Pong #281 Pobble #220 Polar Bat #221 Police Dog #279 Police VS Thief #280 Pooyan #88 #400 Popeye #89 Porter #108 Power Robot #223 #282 Power Soccer #173 Pro Wrestling #133 Pulveration #283 Puzzle #308 Pyramid #134 Qbake #129 Quarth #174 Rabbit Village #284 Raidon Bungeling #64 #376 River Jump #285 Road Fighter #84 #396 Robocop #26 #338 Route 16 Turbo #135 Rural Goblin #222 Rush N Attack #13 #325 Sea Wolf #287 Seamaid #304 Season Garden #224 Seicross #136 Seport Guarl #286 Shot Put #309 Shrew Mouse #225 Silent Hunter #230 Sky Destroyer #90 Sky Hunter #176 Slalom #137 Small Dinosaur #229 Snow Ball #226 Snow Bros #19 #331 Soccer #138 Solomon #175 Son Son #139 Space Base #288 Space ET #91 Spartan X #140 Spelunker #141 Spider Man #28 #340 Spider Man 2 #289 Spider Man 3 #290 Spring World #291 Spy vs Spy #142 Sqoon #143 Star #292 Star Fighter #227 Star Force #92 Star Gate #93 Star Luster #144 Star Soldier #158 Strafe #228 Strong Pill #305 Submarine #293 Super Chinese #156 Super Contra 7 #10 #322 Super Mario Bros #1 #313 Super Mario Bros 3 #3 #315 Tank A1999 #30 #342 Tennis #94 Tetris 2 #145 The Archer #231 The Legend of Kag #31 #343 Thexder #146 Through Man #294 Tiger Heli #177 Tower of Druaga #114 Toy Factory #295 Transformers #178 Trooper #312 Turtle 1 #6 #318 Turtle Fighter #7 #319 Twin Bee #157 Twin Cards #232 Undersea Arena #233 Urban Champion #95 Utmost Warfare #296 Vigilant #297 Volguard 2 #147 Volleyball #148 War Zone #298 Warhouse Boy #99 Waroman #96 Warrior #234 Water Pipe #299 Wild Worm #300 Wisdom #179 Wonder Ball #301 Xevious #150 Yie AR Kung Fu #97 Zippy Race #98

These cheap consoles are endlessly fascinating, you just never know what you'll find when you start it up. Including the ones you find in budget retail stores, there's just so many! Looking forward to seeing the results with the new camera, too. I use a couple of Lumix G-series cameras myself! The autofocus sucks on the whole range unfortunately, but otherwise they're excellent.

Someone's probably mentioned it already (especially on a three year old video), but Namco was called Namcot in Japan prior to 1995. Threw me for a loop as well when I first started collecting Famicom carts over the last year.

Nice test! Thanks, Adrian! My son just found out that if you press the A, B, X and Y at the same time and then the RESET button, the console enters a "main device test" with sound channels and color tests. :-)

"Mario 14" is a ROM hack of Kaiketsu Yanchamaru 3

Thanks for showing this off at the club! I've just placed my order: red, with the second controller. 😄

That was a screen protector! Should have peeled just the front layer off :)

"Do not play if you are tired or need sleep." "Play in a well-lit room" "Take a 10 to 15 minute break every hour" Those rules are very common Adrian. They are in many manuals of games, even in the Nintendo DS games underneath the prevention of Seizures. Of course folks wouldn't know this if they don't read manuals.

From a retro game perspective for the price it is a good deal. Thanks for sharing Adrian

Best thorough review. Thanks man. Subscribed

The manual might as well say "do not eat game console"

Thanks for reviewing one of these. It’s great that you are reviewing all these items from Aliexpress. There is a theory that they send better built merch to the US. I should try it out since I am out here in Asia...

Super Mario 14 is a hack of the Japan-exclusive Famicom title Kaiketsu Yanchamaru 3: Taiketsu! Zouringen, the second follow-up to Kid Niki: Radical Ninja. Its title screen suggests it was published in 1993. Super Mario 14 has a nearly identical PCB to Super Bros. 11.Super Mario 14 has a different title screen, which depicts a samurai Mario, has a copyright year updated to 1993, and credits "Wario". A few of Kid Niki's sprites were replaced with Mario's. In accordance to the Mario theme, some enemies were replaced with Koopas and Spinies, and some items were changed to Coins and Mushrooms. The graphics were taken from Super Mario Bros. 2 (Lost Levels) and Super Mario Bros 3.

Hey y'all . In Australia , the game Adventure Island , is called Wonder Boy . There are five Wonder Boy adventures with two Part Three s . One part three is called Dragons Trap and the other part three is called Monster Land .

Thanks for this. I think my niece is getting her first videogame console this xmas!

Thumbs up for Spy VS Spy, for sure! I played the heck outta that as a kid. One of my all time favorites to play with friends.

I nearly brought 1 of those for Xmas and looking now on Amazon there are a load of clones for less than £20 some have buttons on the side others come with plug in controllers, greatly appreciate the unbox and review. If you or reader are interested there are more expensive sub £50 - £70 that have 3000 or 9500 games covering just about every console NEOGEO/CPS/FC/NES/SFC/SNES/GB/GBC/GBA/SMC/SMD/SEGA and I only recognise a couple of those.

KAGE, or Yami no Shigotonin Kage, was the Japanese name for the game "Shadow Warrior".

Love your enthusiasm :)

Oooh Nibbles.BAS converted to Nintendo! One of my favourite MS-DOS games. Playable in QBasic.

"Always play in a well-lit room" is a standard warning precaution against photosensitive epilepsy. A part of the screen is usually masked off on these, so the whole screen should be 240x320 and is 3:4, and it's turned on the side. Due to how it scans out from top to bottom on the screen by design - or basically left to right as oriented here - there would be weird tearing.

Welp, just ordered 3 of these! Kids and Wife will love them for Christmas.

20:23: "These are little Apple Logos here". Or just "Apples" in some parts of the world :D

Love those instructions and for $10, it looks pretty good.

The problem with the NES cartridge connector is the the pins get squashed by the push down motion of loading the cartridge. Blowing on your NES games just causes the metal to rust on the connector of the cartridge and in the NES. The trick is the open it up and use small hook (bend the end of a safety pin with pliers to a ~300° angle) on the one row of pins that is squashed down and just pry them back up a little.

As you know, the issues you are seeing are a result of programmers using loopholes in the memory mapper system of the NES to save memory. In the consolidated NES-on-a-chip, those loopholes are not possible, so many games, such as Gauntlet, do not work on clones.

adventure island,mappy and circus was my favourite when I was a kid. I just ordered one console from aliexpress for 8.5 euros. Can't wait to receive my parcel!

The "Tetris 2" game is the Tengen (Atari) version of Tetris - because of licensing issues, there were two different versions of Tetris on the NES. The Tengen version is superior.

Tetris 2 is actually the rare Tengen Tetris which is a port from the Atari Arcade version that got pulled from the shelves due to Nintendo suing Tengen. I prefer this NES version over the Nintendo version.

Great review, gotta get one

I've ordered it yesterday and it works supriseingly good

I had more fun listening to you laugh at the games more than the games themselves! 😂

I ordered one yesterday (with control pad) before I even saw your video. Glad you were so positive about it :-) #UPDATE# Came today = No Box, No Screen Protector, Marks on Screen (Suspect Used), Battery TOTALLY flat. Super Mario does not start [Now Does ???] unless plugged into the TV (horrible Vertical Bars) or TFT screen (horrible Horizontal lines). FYI there is 2.45 volts across the A/V cable when Mario is on less for other games.

I like your jolly disposition. 🤪😎

I bought one of these for my Bugout Bag along with some spare batteries. Now I am building a collection of useful items that use the same battery.

"Tetris 2" is Tengen's Tetris. It was an unlicensed game by Atari.

I LOVE the intro!!!

@ 3:29 "0 - 3 sad onions" I like that icon.

The music in Binary land is amazing!

I've just bought 2 of these as stocking fillers for my boys on the strength of your review - they'd better be good! ;-). Thank you for the upload. Gordon

Adrian, for your NES search on RU-vid for the blinking light fix. It’s basically a cartridge connection replacement board that you install in your NES, and it allows you to plug in a cartridge without pushing it down. But blinking light fix is literally the official name for it.

If you install a Blinking Light Win in your NES it will be quite a bit more reliable. It's a new connector board and tray that removes the push down mechanism. No soldering needed either. I'm not affiliated with them but I've installed a few and they've been performing very well.

Thank you for your time.

It's funny how these little consoles are all the same but with small differences. I got the exact same console for Christmas (likely from Amazon). Mine came with a carrying case and a 2nd controller! I haven't hooked it up to the TV, but I've played the two player games with my kids.

I've ordered this a few days ago from Ali express for £3.99 for the money it ain't bad at all

Binary Lands was quite popular and easy to get in countries where was imported many clones of Famicom (which in europe was converted to PAL from NTSC)

1-183 are normal nes/famicom games + some hacks like super mario 14 (kid nikkk 3) and angry birds (moai kun) 184-313 are nice code games (usually found on dreamgear's consoles like retroplay, gamer v portable. some are even on the retro bit portable) 314-400 are repeats of the normal nes/famicom games

The early 90's were some of the best years..

Awesome review! 👌😅

Looking forward to the teardown to see if it can be used for other cool projects 👍

I love mine, got 2 for my daughters as well.

@15:15 It's a rom hack of a Kid Niki game from what I remember. @22:03 For whatever reason, during the NES days, Namco would slap "NAMCOT" on their games. I can't find much of anything as to why they added the T, but it's in a few official releases.

my dad never got a game boy but he said when he was a kid those game boys are the most fam thing ever

Great video, one of your best. Was frogger on there?

I love how the DS version of Dig Dug the top screen is dig the two in the bottom screen is Dig Dug one and you play them both at the same time

Bomb sweeper was actually a really good Game & Watch game. It was my last one, still have it.

Flappy is a real Japanese game. It seems it was on several Japanese '80s computers and got as far as a sequel before the company that made it died out. 24:50 The color looking weird? That sounds the color difference that happens when you play an actual NES on different NTSC CRT TVs, but maybe that's coincidence. 27:03 Yep, Thexder was released in Japan. The first console game Square ever published, I believe. 28:40 Angry Birds is a mod of a Japanese puzzle game called Moai-kun.

I bought one because of this video. Looks fine for the price. Hi Clint :)

I remember coding Nibbles in BASIC on my Apple ][+ back in the day.

When you watch an Adrian Black video, Rick Astley watches you back...

You are very funny. I enjoyed this video 🤣

When the manual is better than the console itself. Man they should release versions of this manual every year

Fyi apparently in 2021 you get 800 games and Micro USB for the same price! I bought a bundle for $15 shipped which includes a separate controller for 2p action. Love it

I think you should make some more videos (or another channel) for more vids of you playing some retro games. I'd love to see you playing some sega MS or TG16.

5:40 if mini usb is old, well my brand new ti graphical calculator uses mini usb for charging. I do like the mini more than the micro because it is way more resistant to wear.

Quite neat! There are 500 in 1 versions appearing now.

This handheld console would have been the dream back then ❤

Hey - Glad you got a New Camera! I saw a few of your videos. I have 2 Questions for you. Firstly does this console or the Console in yor other video "I thought this $4 8-bit game console was going to be total junk" supports game saving? Also which Console would you recommend under $14. So far Ive seen SF2000, GB300 but those support Roms as well

16:35 You have no idea how much I feel you on this one. It's an amazing game, but damn that eggplant is unforgiving.

I think that actually is a 4:3 aspect ratio. What makes it looks stretched out is that the top and bottom 8 pixels normally get cut off from the top and bottom of the screen.

Now, let’s mod the machine and swap the motherboard with a Raspberry Pi Zero.

I don't really have an opinion of Adventure Island but I love Wonder Boy on the Sega Master System.

i use to put a second cartridge on top of the down one, i didn't understand why it worked but i guess the extra push helped the connector

5:20 the picture in the manual is actually correct!

I have this, the little screen is mint quality but you can tell for some games you're supposed to play it on a bigger tv screen. Very fun console tho

There are tons of these clones nowadays, it’s almost as if they release “new” models of varying quality every week. You should check Retro Core’s channel for more shenanigans like this, it’s quite enjoyable! 😁

Bought mine for $5. I love and enjoy playing with this console, cheap and fun. Although I had to mod it to slow down the games, so it's just like the old ones.

2.8 inch wide IS a 3 inch display, because displays are measured DIAGONALLY. :)

26:00 Buck Rogers. It had a version that was a cartridge for the C64.

I'm subscribing because you actually read Chinese manual. So effing hilarious.

:o i havent seen or thought about that game with the penguins since i was a kid and we had a 100 in 1 cartridge for the NES, the main thing on there was a bootleg 8-bit version of street fighter 2. it was a famicon cartridge and needed and adapter and a modded NES to play it, wish i had kept that stuff.

Just bought one after what your video's on it, it's not bad for £8

Namcot is a name that was used for projects done in co-operation with Data East. Namcot is indeed Namco.

Install a Blinking Light Win kit in that NES, solves the poor cartridge connection issue (at least for carts that don't have corrosion damage)

I wonder if them hacking + squeezing that long url in the rom had something to do with some of the games being glitchy. I read it can cause problems if you insert more text into a position than was there previously.

I totally laughed out loud to "Peel Off Porn"! Love your show Adrian!

How did you connect it to your HDMI monitor? I couldn't quite hear what you said in the video.

Just bought one for my granddaughter, both my daughters had hoary ol' NES's as kids and spent immense amounts of fun hours on 'em as I did back when the SMB3 pack came out, I was going to give her a Raspberry Pi gamer rig but this is just what I wanted as shes only a young un and prob not ready for a full on Pi.

Recently found Adrian's channel. Been enjoying the content. After seeing this I picked up one of these off of Ebay. Unfortunately the one I got disappointed me. At first it seemed ok. Then I noticed that playing Super Mario Bros. that the sound at the end of the level seemed off as it was counting up the score, like the audio couldn't keep up. Figured it was just bad audio. But then I noticed that the game timer was going too quick. If you aren't doing a speed run you will notice that the hurry up music starts to play quicker than expected. I expected poor quality and duplicate games etc. in the list. But unfortunately this was a bit of a deal breaker. Glad I tried it just didn't work out for me so heads up to those of you considering it.

I loved Aventure island ,also turtles tournament fighter is one of best nes fighter games and very expensive to buy

When the intro started i glanced to see if this was in 1080p LOL

Adventure Island is Wonder Boy. It's an amazing game!

28:05 yup thats a legit Famicon game of Transformers, never made it to the west for some reason

It really doesn't look that bad! Seems decent for the money.

Namco back in the 80's is call "Namcot", not spelling wrong.

Bought it recently, I think it's worth the money.

I'm sure that hissing sound is nothing to worry about. After all, the box had safety certification logos on it!

Man, I loved the Adventure Island 2, because I was a kid who loved dinosaurs :)

Ok question. Is it possible to save games on it coz I got to level 3 in super mario bros but then I turned the console off and it didn't save